


Lest faith turn to despair: Act II - Wednesday

by If_all_the_world_and_love_were_young



Series: Lest faith turn to despair [3]
Category: Young Americans (TV)
Genre: Boarding School, Criticism, Drama, F/M, Literary References & Allusions, Multi, Poetry, Pop Culture, Rawley Academy, Rebirth/rejuvenation, Sexual Content, Surreal, Teen Romance, True Love, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-11-22
Updated: 2000-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 26
Words: 50,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/If_all_the_world_and_love_were_young/pseuds/If_all_the_world_and_love_were_young
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848">Lest faith turn to despair</a></em> is a critical appreciation, in the form of a fanfiction sequel, of Steven Antin’s <em>Young Americans</em> (Columbia TriStar & Mandalay Television for The WB network, 2000), a dramatic essay in philosophy of love.</p>
<p><strong>Synopsis</strong>:  The original drama’s “true love” story affects that drama’s other characters.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848">Lest faith turn to despair</a></em> is a drama in five acts, plus <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123/chapters/3025873">prologue</a>, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438438/chapters/3034030">intermezzo</a>, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438567/chapters/3035860">envoi</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208">notes</a>.  Each act, like the intermezzo, covers one of six consecutive days around the Thanksgiving following the original drama.  Due to its length, it is posted on <em>Archive of Our Own</em> as a series of six works, with the notes as a separate work.</p>
<p>All sexually active characters are above the legal age of consent in the setting place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Frontispiece

The original drama, _Young Americans_ , may be viewed online [here](http://www.youtube.com/user/IckyGrub). Antin’s public comments on it may be read [here](https://sites.google.com/site/rawleyrevisited/antin-on-ya).

 

 

 

Love is strong as death, passion unyielding as the grave;

the flashes thereof are of fire, a very flame of the Lord.

– _Song of Song_ s 8:6

 

To be and to be seen to be thankful;

this is truly not only the greatest of the virtues,

but also the mother of all the rest.

– Cicero, _Pro Plancio_ xxxiii.

 

Stranger, dreams are very curious and unaccountable things, and they do not always come true.

There are two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies proceed;

one is of horn, the other of ivory. Those that come through the gate of ivory are fatuous,

but those from the gate of horn mean something.

– Penelope to the disguised Odysseus, _Odyssey_ xix

 

*       *       *


	2. Series Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Links to other parts of the drama, _[Lest faith turn to despair](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848)_ , which, due to its length, is published on _Archive of Our Own_ as a series.

**[Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848) Contents** :

[Notes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1437208): setting; _dramatis personae_ ; genre; allusions; obscenity; chronology.

[Prologue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123/chapters/3025873)

[Act I - Tuesday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438123)

[Act II - Wednesday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222)

[Act III - Thanksgiving Day](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438309)

[Intermezzo - Friday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438438/chapters/3034030)

[Act IV - Saturday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438438)

[Act V - Sunday](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438567)

[Envoi](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438567/chapters/3035860)

 

Each act of this drama has its own scene-specific table of contents.

 

Photo above is of Will Krudski (Rodney Scott) in Finn's classroom at Rawley Academy, from episode 1 of _Young Americans._

The phrase on the chalkboard, "My love, she speaks like silence," is the first line of Bob Dylan's  _Love Minus Zero/No Limit_ (1965).

 

*       *       *


	3. Contents of Act II - Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Links to the scenes of Act II of [_Lest faith turn to despair_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/89848).
> 
> Each below-listed scene of Act II is a chapter of this work.

 

**Act II - Wednesday**

     [Scene 1 - Pain and suffering](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037078)

     [Scene 2 - Newspaper withdrawal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037105)

     [Scene 3 - Playing cupid](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037126)

     [Scene 4 - At the signpost](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037174)

     [Scene 5 - Stopping by woods](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037201)

     [Scene 6 - Calendography](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037300)

     [Scene 7 - Cocoa and muffins](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037381)

     [Scene 8 - Brownies and Hindemuth](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037735)

     [Scene 9 - Winning changes everything](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037873)

     [Scene 10 - _Cours d’Amour_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037906)

     [Scene 11 - Pudding and hard sauce](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3037957)

     [Scene 12 - Too-long Longfellow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038062)

     [Scene 13 - In a glass, darkly](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038092)

     [Scene 14 - Motorcycle maintenance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038119)

     [Scene 15 - A bit of blatant foreshadowing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038161)

     [Scene 16 - What here shall miss …](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038191)

     [Scene 17 - The Compleat Angler](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038248)

     [Scene 18 - Old and yet ever new](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038341)

     [Scene 19 - Feng Shui](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038488)

     [Scene 20 - More calendography](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038692)

     [Scene 21 - Our toil shall strive to mend](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/8739553)

     [Scene 22 - Silk boxers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038782)

     [Scene 23 - Clouds unfold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438222/chapters/3038962)

 

Photo above is of Hamilton Fleming (Ian Somerhalder) brooding under a tree on the shore of Lake Rawley, shown during Will Krudski's narrator's conclusion to episode 3 of _Young Americans_.  

           *       *       *    


	4. Scene 1 - Pain and suffering

INT - SCOUT’S & WILL’S DORM ROOM, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - EARLY MORNING)

 

(SCOUT and WILL lie asleep in their beds. From outside, the bell carillon plays the Westminster Quarters and peals seven hour-strokes.)

WILL (stiffly standing up, raising the blind, and looking out the window): ‘Morning, Scout.

SCOUT (groggily, from under the covers): ‘Morning, Will. Tell me it’s not still snowing.

WILL: Sorry, no can do. It’s still falling. And it’s deep.

SCOUT (slowly sitting up, groaning): Every part of my body aches. And I thought I was in shape.

WILL: Real work’s a bitch, ain’t it?

(From the corridor, a series of ever-louder knocks on doors, accompanied by the bellowing of the GROUNDSKEEPER.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: Rise and shine, gentlemen! Another lovely autumn day. Morning and afternoon shoveling assignments are posted in the common room.

(SCOUT, in his boxers, rises, lurches to the door, opens it, just in time to stop the GROUNDSKEEPER from knocking. The GROUNDSKEEPER is clad in his distinctive Ignatius Reilly scarf and parka, unfastened, hat stuffed into a pocket. Down the corridor, groggy Rawley-crest-towel-wrapped boys shuffle stiffly toward the showers.)

SCOUT (wincing): ‘Morning, Haggerty.

GROUNDSKEEPER: Mr. Calhoun, you don't seem happy to see me.

SCOUT: Hamilton, yesterday, was easier on the eyes.

GROUNDSKEEPER: I’m crushed, Mr. Calhoun. I prettied myself up special this morning just for you. Enjoy your shoveling, gentlemen.

WILL: Thanks.

(The GROUNDSKEEPER continues down the corridor, knocking and shouting. Scout shuts the door.)

WILL: Pity I’ll miss much of today’s shoveling. I work the lunch shift at the diner. Of which I kindly relieved you so that you might join your loved ones in Greenwich.

SCOUT (starting stiffly to make his bed): ‘Fraid not. I phoned in yesterday evening to ask for it back. But the diner’s closed till Saturday.

WILL: Oh no. (He sits down on his bed, holding his head in his hands.)

SCOUT: Cheer up. It’s pain and suffering. Guaranteed to make you more compassionate.

 

*       *       *


	5. Scene 2 - Newspaper withdrawal

INT - FLEMINGS’ HOUSE, FAMILY DINING ROOM, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - MORNING)

 

(Snow falls in the back yard outside. Bach’s [fifth Brandenburg concerto](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx0yVYZhb-E) plays softly from corner speakers connected to the CD player in the library. The table is unextended, with four chairs; places are set for three. Two extra chairs flank the sideboard on the wall separating the room from the kitchen.

HAMILTON, barefoot, wearing a flannel shirt, pullover sweater, and relatively loose brushed-denim jeans, is finishing breakfast – ham, eggs, oatmeal, milk, orange juice. Only coffee cups remain at his parent’s places. A closed folder lies on the sideboard.)

HAMILTON (loudly, between rushed bites): Dad, I have the photos here, if you’d like to get started looking at them.

DEAN (from the kitchen): That can wait till you’re done with breakfast. Two heads are better than one.

HAMILTON: It might help you get through newspaper withdrawal.

DEAN (from the kitchen): Mmmm … One muddles through as one may.

(From the kitchen, a giggle - KATE’s. HAMILTON’s eyes roll. He wolfs down the rest of his food.)

HAMILTON (rising and clearing his plate and bowl, but hesitating before entering the kitchen): Well, that was good, thanks. I’ll just clear my plate now and we can get started.

(KATE emerges from the kitchen, smiling at HAMILTON, the DEAN following her and carrying a small cup.)

KATE (to HAMILTON): Here, I’ll take those. … (Taking the plate and bowl:) You guys get to work. I’ll be out with more coffee in a minute, Steven.

(The DEAN sits down at the table.)

KATE: Would you like some, Mun … Hamilton?

HAMILTON (picking up the folder and taking a seat next to his father): Yes, please. I still hear my bed calling me.

(KATE goes back into the kitchen.)

HAMILTON: Dad, there are about forty photos here. Some color, mostly of scenery, some black-and-white, mostly of people doing things. We need to choose thirteen that are seasonally appropriate, and balanced between the school and the town. I’ve grouped them by the month we might use them for, three or four per month.

DEAN: Why don’t we choose the cover photo first. Do you have a suggestion?

HAMILTON: Yes, I do.

(HAMILTON fishes out a black-and-white shot of SCOUT Calhoun sweeping the walk in front of Friendly’s while other students, some preppies, some townies, laugh over ice creams at the window table. KATE, now wearing an apron, brings in an espresso pot, as well as a cup for HAMILTON.)

DEAN (after a pause, musingly): I was about to say it’s a pity this isn’t in color. But if it were, the flower boxes would steal the show, wouldn’t they? And the black-and-white somehow conveys a sense of transience. Yes, it’ll do nicely.

KATE (pouring espresso): You see, Hamilton, he’s not hopeless after all. (She kisses the DEAN on the cheek.)

HAMILTON: Great, on to January. …

 

*       *       *


	6. Scene 3 - Playing cupid

INT - RAWLEY BOYS’, COMMON ROOM, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - MORNING)

 

(Shoveling assignments are posted on an easel. SEAN McGrail, in a plaid flannel shirt and snow-covered jeans, stands near the fire, chatting with several Rawley Academy faculty members. A backpack rests on the floor nearby. FINN leads the DEAN and HAMILTON from the corridor into the common room. HAMILTON wears an open parka and tassel loafers, no socks; he carries a photo case and a sheath of papers.)

FINN: Dean Fleming, this is Sean McGrail, a student at Edmund High. His mother’s the PTA president. Sean, Steven Fleming, our dean, and Hamilton, his son and a student here.

SEAN (shaking the DEAN’s hand): Pleased to meet you, Dean Fleming. Hamilton and I are acquainted. Through Will Krudski. … (To HAMILTON:) Good to see you again. It’s been a while.

HAMILTON: Yeh, we should talk. (While the conversation continues, he sets his photo case on a table, opens it, inserts the sheath of papers, and closes it again.)

DEAN: Thank you for coming, Mr. McGrail. … (Looking at SEAN’s jeans:) You walked from town in this weather?

SEAN: Beats stranding our car. Even a four-wheeler’s a poor bet today. Anyhow, I brought you these, from my mom. …

(SEAN opens the backpack, takes out two plastic bags, unwraps them to produce an encased CD, a folder of papers and a neatly tied stack of file cards.)

SEAN: Here are the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the families who’d like to host your students … on a spreadsheet on this CD … printed out on this list … and the file-cards that the spreadsheet was made from. … (Handing them to the DEAN:) My mom didn’t want to e-mail it – too much personal information.

DEAN: So she told me yesterday. … Everyone at this school is deeply grateful for this, Sean. My wife and I hope soon to thank your parents in person, and I hope you’ll join us for that. Meanwhile, please convey my thanks to your mother for me.

SEAN: Our pleasure, sir.

DEAN: Well, my colleagues and I should get to work assigning our students to these families, and letting the families know whom they’ll be hosting. Meanwhile, if your family can spare you, I suggest you stay here and warm up for an hour or so. The walk home will be easier then, too – our boys are out shoveling the campus walkways. There are books, magazines, television …

SEAN: My folks can do without me for a while. But if somebody can tell me where you’ve got Will Krudski working, it might be more fun to go help him.

FINN (reading the shoveling assignments on the easel): Let’s see … His crew is digging out the girls’ school.

HAMILTON: That’s where I’m headed. And the girls are baking today. We might be able to find you something to eat when we get there.

DEAN: Thank you again, Mr. McGrail, very much. We are well and truly rescued. … Hamilton, good luck with the calendars. And thanks for taking those papers to the girls’ school for me. … (To the other faculty members): So, shall we get to it?

(THE DEAN leads the other faculty members toward the corridor and his office).

DEAN (entering the corridor, out of earshot of SEAN and HAMILTON): You know, I subscribe to the Edmund High yearbook – comes in handy sometimes. Think we might play Cupid today? Assign unattached girls to boys’ families, and _vice-versa_ , in the same grade, insofar as possible?

(His colleagues exchange looks of surprise.)

DEAN (to FINN): And which of our boys is it who keeps getting caught with the McGrail girl?

 

*       *       *


	7. Scene 4 - At the signpost

EXT - RAWLEY GIRLS’, THE SIGNPOST, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - MORNING)

 

(Still snowing. Several four-boy crews, including one made up of SCOUT, WILL, MARK and BRANDON, all in hooded parkas, shovel various parts of the girls’ school grounds, the lawns of which are now two feet deep in snow and flanked by higher snowbanks.

HAMILTON, carrying his case of photos, and SEAN, his empty backpack slung over one shoulder, both in hooded down parkas and scarves, emerge from the woods at the signpost on the already-shoveled path from the boy’s school. The three golden retrievers accompany them, relishing SEAN’s attention.)

HAMILTON (stopping by the signpost, joining SEAN in playing with the dogs): For sure. … There’s Will, working on the far side of the driveway, with Scout and two other guys. See them?

SEAN: Yeh. They look beat already.

HAMILTON: I’ll meet you over where Will is in a few minutes and take you inside, OK? I’d like to make a call on my cell first.

SEAN: To Jacqueline?

HAMILTON: Yeh.

SEAN: How’s she doing at Grottlesex?

HAMILTON: Really well, thanks.

SEAN: I’m glad. Look, I don’t mean to pry, but from what your dad said, it sounds like our families might get together soon. So I need to ask: do your parents still not know that Jacqueline’s a girl?

HAMILTON: No, they don’t.

SEAN: So I’d heard. Bella says you’ve got reasons for not telling them. But aren’t they, like … concerned?

HAMILTON: I thought they were. I’ve spent most weekends this term at Grottlesex, and until a week or two ago, I was getting a lot of hints that they’d like me to tell them if I’m gay. But now it’s just weird. Suddenly they’re so busy digging each other, like teenagers, that they’ve stopped bugging me about it.

SEAN: Well, you’re in no position to complain about weirdness. Anyhow, if the subject comes up with my parents or yours, I think Jake’s a boy, and don’t know what goes on between you and him, right?

HAMILTON: Yeh, for now. Thanks. … Look, Jacqueline and I know we have to come clean soon. I had a plan for doing that, but it seems to have gone off track. That’s what I want to talk to her about.

SEAN: Well, good luck. Say hi to her for me, will ya? I’ll be over with Krudski when you’re done.

(SEAN runs off with the dogs. HAMILTON takes out his mobile phone and presses a button.)

 

*       *       *


	8. Scene 5 - Stopping by woods

EXT - GROTTLESEX, A HILL OVERLOOKING THE TOWN – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (DAY - MORNING)

(Two feet of snow cover the ground, more falls windlessly. JAKE drives her new snowmobile along the edge of a wood. ANNE Crompton, her roommate, rides on the seat behind her, the snowmobiler’s pack strapped to her back. Both wear parkas, snow-pants, helmets, gloves – JAKE’s all white, ANNE’s all blue – and snowboots.

JAKE stops, pulls off her right glove, unzips her parka, takes her vibrating mobile phone out of her shirt pocket, sees that the caller is HAMILTON. She turns off the ignition.)

JAKE: Hi, Hamilton. Wait a minute. (She takes off her helmet.) … OK, what’s up, boy? …

(ANNE dismounts, takes JAKE’s helmet, sets it on the rear seat, removes her own helmet and sets it next to JAKE’s.)

JAKE: Weird? That’s great. You should be happy for them. How are they treating you? … So what’s the problem? …

(ANNE digs a mini-can of Coke out of a paper bag in the rear compartment, opens it, offers it to JAKE.)

JAKE (taking the Coke): Then change your plan. (She drinks.) … Hamilton, I haven’t seen much point in putting it off any longer for a while now. To wait till your parents demand the truth was your idea. …

(JAKE hands the can back to ANNE, who turns, starts to trudge away. JAKE grabs ANNE’s wrist to keep her close. ANNE drinks and admires the view.)

JAKE: So we'll have to tell my mom. We have a plan for that, don't we, brilliant boyfriend? … Hamilton, it'll work. She'd forgive me anything that inspired you to see that. … Great. So the next time we get together, it’ll be in New Rawley. And we’ll tell your folks. Tell everyone. Or, rather, show them. … As soon as we can. … Good, I feel better too. …

(ANNE hand-gestures JAKE to hang up.)

JAKE: Hamilton, wait. I’ll call you right back. (She hangs up.) … What, Anne?

ANNE: If you’re really gonna do that, shouldn’t you warn him that it’ll be soon?

(ANNE hands the Coke to JAKE, who drinks, thinks a moment.)

JAKE: You’re right, thanks. … (She hands the can back to ANNE, punches a button on her phone.) ... Sorry, Hamilton. The power went out for a few seconds. … We’ve got generators, we’ll be fine. Ya know, the roads should be clear by Saturday, the buses should be running by Sunday. Shall we talk to your parents then? …

(ANNE finishes the can, shakes it out.)

JAKE: No, Sunday. That’s the soonest I can be sure of getting there, you’ll want to schedule a time for us to talk with your parents, and I don’t wanna chance having somebody else there see me before they do. … Me too, boy, but that’s what you’ve got Mark for. …

ANNE (under her breath): Heartless bitch.

JAKE (grinning, pulling ANNE close): Anne? She’s downstairs doing laundry. Kinda disappointed about not seeing New York, but enjoying the snow. They don’t get much in Atherton. … Of course I’ll ask her. … Hamilton, she'll come. She and Mark have been waiting for this for two months. … 

(ANNE, stifling a laugh, disengages from JAKE.)

JAKE: No, I need to be back here Monday, partly to get permission to take a day off. How about Wednesday, if that works for my mom? … No, that's soon enough. … Hamilton, she doesn't know anyone from Rawley. Nobody but your dad would call her - and he won't if we're about to tell her ourselves, will he? … Good, then we'll both bus to New York Tuesday evening, teach my mom some Shakespeare, and bus back to school Wednesday evening. …

(ANNE puts the Coke can back into the bag in the rear compartment.)

JAKE: Well then, go do it. … Really? … Say hi to him back for me. … I love you, too, Hamilton.

(JAKE closes and pockets the phone, zips up her parka. She picks up the helmets, pushes herself back onto the rear seat, pats the front seat. ANNE takes off the backpack, straps it onto JAKE, sits on the front seat. JAKE hands ANNE her blue helmet, then puts an arm around ANNE.)

ANNE (clasping JAKE's arm with her free hand and leaning back into her): Scared?

JAKE: Witless.

(They appreciate the scenery and the silence for a moment).

JAKE: “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

(JAKE shakes the snow out of her own hair, brushes it out of ANNE’s.)

ANNE Shall we find a nice snowdrift to get stuck in?

JAKE: Bring it on.

(Both girls put their helmets back on. ANNE re-starts the ignition, guns the throttle and drives on.)

*       *       *

 


	9. Scene 6 - Calendography

INT - RAWLEY GIRLS’, RAWLEY RAG OFFICE, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - MORNING)

 

(A basement office – small windows near the ceiling of the exterior wall. The opposite wall is pierced by a closed translucent frosted-glass paneled door to a corridor, on which “The Rawley Rag,” seen in reverse, is stenciled. On one side of the door is a row of coat pegs, on the other, a sturdy wooden trestle-bench and a shoe rack. One side-wall is pierced by an open door to a more industrial-looking printing shop with a concrete floor. In the center of the other side-wall, flanked by old bookshelves, is what was once a fireplace, in which an electric space heater runs. The floor is a beige tile-pattern mat.

Old wooden desks and worktables on furniture coasters, flanked by unmatched swivel coaster chairs and topped by a variety of computer workstations, scanners and printers, occupy the center and print-shop end of the office, leaving a large open space in front of the erstwhile hearth. In the center of that open space are two thin plastic-covered gym mats, pushed together. The mats are littered with cushions of diverse shapes, sizes and colors. Four beanbag chairs are set at their corners. The walls are hung with framed front pages of major U.S. and British newspapers from dates of historical importance.

The desks are cluttered with papers, schoolbooks, notebooks and coffee mugs. One of the bookcases contains bound volumes of the school paper, yearbooks, and alumni newsletters. The other houses a CD player, a CD collection, some folded blankets, a pile of folded towels, more cushions, and piles of textbooks and notebooks. On the floor near the gym mats are some curling weights; a chin-up bar has been fitted into the door to the printing shop. The shoe rack holds six pairs of girls’ topsiders or slip-on loafers, the coat pegs are empty. A Vivaldi [mandolin concerto](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Hvdrf--V0) plays softly from the CD player.

JAN, NANCY, ALICE, WENDY, DOROTHY and SUSAN are seated at desks. All are barefoot and dressed in work clothes – jeans and flannel shirts, some plaid, some solid-colored.

A knock on the door.)

JAN: Come in, Hamilton.

(HAMILTON enters, in open parka, scarf, and tassel loafers, carrying his case of photos.)

HAMILTON: Sorry to be late. I was escorting a guy from town to the baking party upstairs.

JAN (standing, walking to HAMILTON): And you left him there? Alone? With dozens of baking females?

HAMILTON (re-closing the door behind him): Yeh. As sort of a guest of honor. … (Setting his photo case down on the bench, removing and hanging his scarf and parka:) His mom’s the president of the Edmund High PTA. He walked from town to bring my dad the list of our host families for Thanksgiving dinner.

ALICE (rising and walking to HAMILTON): You’re very cruel, Hamilton. But you’re not very late.

HAMILTON (hugging ALICE): Alice Liddell, I have missed you.

ALICE: So why haven’t Jan and I seen more of you this term, boy?

HAMILTON (shrugging): I like you both too much.

JAN: Show us and we might forgive you.

(HAMILTON wraps his arms around JAN and ALICE and kisses them affectionately.)

HAMILTON (breaking off): How are you two getting through this year?

ALICE: Better than expected, Ham. But we’ll talk later. After the work’s done, OK?

HAMILTON (disengaging from both girls): Sure.

JAN: Alice is doing the spreadsheet work today. Nancy you’ll recall from last night.

NANCY: Hi, Hamilton.

HAMILTON: Hi, Nancy.

JAN: Let me introduce you to the others. Hamilton Fleming, Dorothy Gale. A third-year, like Nancy.

DOROTHY: Hi, Hamilton. I’m doing the online research.

JAN: Wendy Darling and Susan Pevensie. Both second-years.

WENDY: We’re patient …

SUSAN: And meticulous.

ALICE: And unattached and wicked.

HAMILTON (amused): Dorothy, Wendy, Susan … I think we’ve all crossed paths before. But thanks for the re-introductions, Jan. And thank you all for volunteering to help. So, shall we get started?

JAN: Actually, we have started. We’ve been here since seven-thirty.

DOROTHY: I’ve already bookmarked the websites of the town government and historical society, and the academic calendar and history pages of the school website. And culled the salient dates from them.

ALICE: I’ve made twelve spreadsheets, filled each out with the date numbers for a month of next year, and entered the special-day information provided by Dorothy below the appropriate date numbers.

JAN: I’ve entered the spreadsheets into our print layout program for eleven-by-seventeen-inch paper.

NANCY: I’ve laid out twenty-four reams of heavy medium-gloss paper, including two reams of extra-thick for the cover sheets, and four hundred envelopes. And I’ve made sure that the printing equipment is working and inked up.

WENDY: And Susan and I have scrounged us a long-handled stapler, a hole punch and hole re-enforcers, and some things to eat and drink. And we’ve checked Dorothy’s information, as entered by Alice …

SUSAN: … meticulously.

JAN: So now we’re just waiting …

WENDY: … patiently …

JAN: … for your photographs.

HAMILTON (chagrinned): Thanks. … Here they are. … (He opens his case and takes out the photos, each clipped to a file card indicating the month for which is to be used.) We’ll use this one for the cover.

WENDY: Oh, Scout. He’s so cute.

SUSAN: And not taken.

WENDY: But Will is.

(HAMILTON shoots a puzzled glance at SUSAN and WENDY.)

JAN (to HAMILTON, taking the photos): I’ll scan these and copy them into the layout program. Shouldn’t take long. Then you can review what we’ve done and we’ll make whatever changes you want. (She sits down at a scanner and sets to work.)

NANCY: Then we’ll print.

WENDY: And collate.

ALICE: And fold.

DOROTHY: And staple.

SUSAN: And punch and re-enforce hanging-holes.

WENDY: And envelope. Patiently.

SUSAN: And meticulously.

HAMILTON: Enough, please. I get it: I was teaching Jan and Nancy how to suck eggs last night.

WENDY: Who said all the cute ones are dumb?

HAMILTON: So what do I do?

JAN: Later, you can staple. That’s harder than it sounds. Meanwhile, just provide overall guidance …

NANCY: And inspiration. You might start by taking off your shoes? (She raises a bare foot, wiggles her toes.)

HAMILTON (noticing the shoe rack and the bare feet): Oh, sure. … (He scrapes off his loafers, then smiles with surprise.) … Oh, that’s nice. Heated floors? How does the _Rag_ office rate that?

(The girls exchange amused eye rolls.)

SUSAN: Hamilton, we understand that you … don’t have much occasion to visit the girls’ school.

DOROTHY: But except for the common and service areas …

ALICE: There’s floor heating throughout this building.

JAN: Including all the dorm rooms.

HAMILTON: Oh …

NANCY: Take a seat wherever.

HAMILTON: Mind if I wander about a bit? I haven’t been here in years.

JAN: Feel free. Though I doubt much has changed.

HAMILTON (sticking his head into the printing shop): The floor heating’s new. When was it installed?

ALICE: Two summers ago.

HAMILTON: Ah … I was in Europe then.

WENDY: How nice. Would you like some coffee?

HAMILTON (wandering back into the office): Yes, please.

WENDY: Milk and sugar?

HAMILTON: Black.

WENDY: Ooooo … Be right back. (She exits to the printing shop.)

JAN: Ham, these photos are really good.

HAMILTON (reading one of the framed newspaper front pages on the walls): Thank you.

NANCY: You know, newspapers publish photographs.

ALICE: Our newspaper, for example.

DOROTHY: Perhaps you might submit some sometime.

HAMILTON: What kind of photos are you looking for?

SUSAN: Anything local and beautiful.

JAN: Like some of these. (She finishes the scanning and sits at an empty desk, starts to work at the computer on top of it.)

NANCY: Or anything that goes with an article or column.

ALICE: Will Krudski’s weekly column, for example. You two are friends, right?

HAMILTON (moving on to another framed front page): We are.

JAN: Will’s subjects are usually things you could shoot more or less anytime.

DOROTHY: Something obscure in town that he somehow manages to make interesting.

WENDY (re-emerging from the printing shop with a small mug of coffee): The fire station last week.

SUSAN: A tool-and-die factory the week before.

HAMILTON: I know, I read it. … (Taking the coffee from WENDY): Thanks.

NANCY: And Will plans his column a week in advance.

HAMILTON: Sounds doable. I’ll talk with Will. … (Sipping his coffee): Espresso?

WENDY: Yeh. You like?

HAMILTON: Very much. What’d you put in it?

WENDY (returning to her desk): Hazelnut extract. Will likes that. Thought you might, too.

SUSAN: The guy’s so easy to please. Any little luxury’s always new to him.

HAMILTON: What, he hangs out here?

JAN: Hamilton, his name’s on the masthead.

ALICE: Followed by the words, “Contributing editor.”

HAMILTON: Sorry, the masthead’s not something I read regularly.

JAN: No reason you should. Just saying it’s no secret.

HAMILTON: Actually, it is. Will hasn’t spent much time in the common room or the library lately. Said he’d found a quieter place to study. Wouldn’t say where.

ALICE: Well, it is quiet here.

HAMILTON (not buying it): Uh - huh. So what does a contributing editor do?

NANCY: Pretty much whatever he wants. It’s a volunteer activity.

HAMILTON: And what does Will like to do? Other than drink espresso ...

DOROTHY (rolling her eyes at JAN and ALICE): Maybe you should ask Will that.

JAN: When you’re done wandering about, why don’t you sit at his desk?

HAMILTON: His desk?

SUSAN (pointing to a desk next to ALICE’s): That one.

HAMILTON (looking at ALICE): “Curiouser and curiouser.” … (He sits at WILL’s desk, folds his hands behind his head, leans back in the chair. Surveying the room and its occupants:) Will must like this.

JAN: We aim to please.

HAMILTON: So why did you all start so early?

NANCY: Better safe than sorry.

ALICE: We haven’t made calendars before.

DOROTHY: Don’t know how long it will take.

WENDY: And we wouldn’t want to miss this evening’s poetry reading.

JAN: But if all goes well, we hope to finish early.

HAMILTON: That would be nice.

SUSAN: Indeed. Wouldn’t want you to miss your afternoon shoveling.

HAMILTON (lowering his arms): Oh …

(The girls exchange suppressed grins.)

JAN (rising from her chair, motioning HAMILTON to sit in it): OK, Ham, the photos scanned cleanly, and I’ve laid them out. Come take a look.

(HAMILTON shifts from WILL’s desk to JAN’s.)

JAN: If you like what you see, we’re ready to print a sample. To check any of the information, just click on the appropriate source bookmark. If you want anything added …

 

*       *       *


	10. Scene 7 - Cocoa and muffins

EXT - CHARLIE’S GAS STATION, NEW RAWLEY – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (DAY – EARLY AFTERNOON)

 

(Windlessly falling snow continues to add to the two feet of it already on the ground and rooftops. The main street has been plowed fairly recently, and the snowbanks flanking it are high. Most shops and businesses, except for the gas station, are closed; a hand-lettered “CLOSED UNTIL SATURDAY” sign hangs on the door of the Friendly’s diner across the street. No vehicles move on the street.

WILL, SCOUT, MARK and BRANDON are shoveling the Main Street sidewalk in front of the filling station. Another crew of four third-year Rawley boys is at work across the street, in front of Friendly’s. Two more crews are working on the next block of the street.

Inside the gas station office, GRACE Banks bounds down the stairs, in jeans, flannel workshirt, and a kitchen apron. She opens the front door of the gas station and calls out.)

GRACE: Hi guys!

WILL: Hi, Grace, what’s up?

GRACE: Bella and I are making blueberry muffins and hot cocoa. For you guys and the four across the street. Not much of a lunch, but the best we can do. Should be ready in a few minutes. So don’t go away, OK?

SCOUT: Thanks, Grace. Sounds great.

GRACE: See ya soon.

MARK: Count on it, Grace.

(GRACE shuts the door and bounds back up the stairs. The boys resume shoveling.)

BRANDON: Who’s that?

MARK: Grace Banks.

BRANDON: Sweet kid.

MARK: In eighth grade and only fourteen, roomie. Patience.

BRANDON: Coming along nicely, though.

SCOUT: She is. In more ways than one. Last summer she was kind of a hellion.

BRANDON: And now a muffin-baker? Why the change?

SCOUT: Fear. Something happened that makes it look like Grace could be on the street when she turns eighteen. She’s trying to shape up to be able to deal with that. But she’s got problems that fear’s not gonna solve. Grace’s mom abandoned her and her older sister, Bella, ten years ago. They live with their dad above the gas station.

BRANDON: What happened – I mean, to make her afraid she might be on the street?

SCOUT: Their mom still owns the gas station. Bella and Grace and didn’t know that until August, when their mom decided to put it up for auction. Bella went to Carson to see her mom, whom she hadn’t seen for ten years, and her mom ended up leasing it to their dad. But only till Grace turns eighteen.

MARK: So both Grace and Bella are pretty shaken. That’s part of why Will’s unattached. Bella’s the townie girl he’s waiting for, and that’s part of what he’s waiting for her to get over.

BRANDON (briefly stopping his shoveling): Sorry, Will, that sucks. But it won’t last forever.

WILL: Thanks, Brandon. You’re right, it won’t. Besides, Bella and Grace were setting their sights way too low. Being pried loose from that gas station could be the best thing that ever happened to them.

SCOUT: Yeh, it could.

WILL: But Scout, what’s made Grace shape up isn’t just fear. Bella’s been there for Grace this fall. Last summer she wasn’t. Grace has always been kinda wild. But when Bella started dating, Grace started to act up worse than ever. I think she feared being abandoned by Bella, who’d been like a second mom to her.

SCOUT (startled, stopping his shoveling): Of course. Reliving the trauma. That’s why Grace got in the way of Bella’s love life every chance she could. … Why didn’t I see that?

WILL: You didn’t grow up with them.

SCOUT: God, and it was partly my fault. (He sets to shoveling again, harder now.)

WILL: Scout, you and Bella were together for what, a week? If it had lasted longer, I’d have talked to you about Grace. About the need to make her feel included, not threatened with the loss of Bella. Sean did that pretty well, by the way, or tried to. The fault’s mostly Bella’s. She shut her little sister out of her life. It’s part of what she needs time to make good now.

MARK (glumly): Glad to hear that about Sean. … ‘Cause about feeling guilty for shutting your sister out of your life, I know something.

BRANDON: Not to mention the terrible guilt you feel for shutting out your roommate.

MARK (after a pause): Actually, I kinda do. And Brandon, that’s about to stop. This weekend, I promise. I’ll tell you, and show you, what I’ve been up to.

BRANDON: Show me? Who you’re with weekends and Wednesday nights?

MARK: Uh - huh.

BRANDON: Harry, I don’t know who else you’re doing, but Fleming and I are already acquainted. We most recently spoke just this morning, when he told us that Pratt will come here … (Stopping his shoveling, suddenly horrified:) Oh my god … (Resuming shoveling with a vengeance:) I think I’d rather not know, if you don’t mind.

MARK (laughing): Scout, Will, I haven’t told you how perfect my roommate is, in his macho, football lineman way. He never pries, never asks why I’m not in our room several nights a week, or where I go, or who I’m with. He just makes me promise, every so often, that I’m not doing anything dangerous or dumb.

SCOUT: He’s not, Brandon. Stop work for a moment, please.

(They all stop shoveling. BRANDON turns toward SCOUT and WILL.)

SCOUT: Will and I know what Mark’s up to. He told us yesterday, ‘cause he needs our help with something. Mark’s _not_ part of a gay threesome. You’ll like what you see and hear this weekend.

WILL: A lot. And so will everybody else. Brandon, your roommate’s about to stop being a social liability for you, and become quite an asset. But he’s had to be a liability in order to become that asset.

MARK: You’ve put up with it well, roomie. Thank you.

BRANDON (after looking at the other boys, gauging their seriousness): OK, you all mean it. … (To MARK:) But show me, don’t tell me.

MARK: Fair enough.

(SEAN McGrail, still in hooded parka, scarf and jeans, comes running from a plowed side-street.)

SEAN (excitedly): Hey, Krudski!

WILL: Where’s the fire, McGrail?

SEAN (grinning): In my heart.

SCOUT: You OK, guy?

SEAN: OK? I’m in love.

WILL: I know, Sean.

SEAN: You do?

WILL: Well sure. Otherwise you wouldn’t have agreed this morning to shovel for me this afternoon. And Sean, I feel the same way about you.

SEAN (laughing, grabbing WILL’s snow shovel): Krudski, get your sorry preppy ass back to your school and thank Hamilton for me, will you?

WILL: After all these years, Sean, it took Hamilton to make you appreciate me?

SEAN: Yeh, so why don’t you go kiss him for me? … (To SCOUT:) Hamilton introduced me to an amazing girl this morning. If Will doesn’t want to hear about that, all least my mom will. I’m just gonna use the Banks’ phone to call her. I’ll be back to shovel in a couple minutes.

SCOUT: Go. We’ll be here.

WILL: Sean, your mom already knows about us. She’s seen it comin’ since we were little.

SCOUT: Forgive Will, please, Sean. He’s as happy as you are. A little nuts.

SEAN: Why? Did Bella finally …

SCOUT: No. But he thinks Jake’s coming here Sunday could help budge Bella.

SEAN (thoughtfully): It might.

BRANDON: Like Scout said, Krudski’s nuts. But until now, you seemed sane, McGrail.

MARK (shrugging): Romantics, they’re everywhere.

BRANDON: Most girls do not find gay guys romantic.

SCOUT: Bella’s not most girls.

SEAN: Yeh, she’s not. Will’s as lucky as I am. (He grounds the shovel in a snowbank and turns toward the gas station office.)

WILL (grabbing SEAN’s wrist): Sean, of course I want to hear. I want to be best man at your wedding.

SEAN (putting an arm around WILL’s shoulders): Hey, you will be.

WILL: Even though I’ll be heartbroken.

SCOUT: Ignore him, Sean. Just tell us.

SEAN (disengaging from WILL): Hamilton walked me into this huge kitchen with dozens of girls working in it, led me straight to this one girl, barely said “hi” to all the others. He introduced us, suggested she let me help her bake, said something weird, and left.

WILL: What’d he say?

SEAN: “You’re both good.”

SCOUT: Cuts to the chase, doesn’t he? So how’d you play it?

SEAN: She was embarrassed, of course. So I said, “I try to be,” and left her, and started in on whatever work I could find that needed doing. Scrubbed pots, scoured stovetops, swept the floor, was pleasant to the other girls who chatted me up, but tried to make sure that whenever she looked at me, I was looking at her. And whenever I could find an excuse to walk over to her, I leaned in and whispered, “I’m trying.”

BRANDON: Smooth. But if other girls were chatting you up, why didn’t you play the field? Was she the hottest thing there or do you dig the hard-to-get routine?

SEAN: Because in this stuff, Hamilton knows what he’s doing.

BRANDON: Sean, his track record doesn’t inspire confidence. His gay squeeze transferred out after Fleming told him, in public, that he wasn’t worth taking flak from the school asshole. And he’s never come back, but Fleming keeps chasin’ after him.

SEAN: Things aren’t always what they look like. And Jake is coming back here Sunday.

BRANDON: Whatever. If you’re into the girl, I hope it works out. She liked your act, huh?

SEAN: It took an hour to break her down, but finally she tied an apron on me and set me to helping her.

WILL: And?

SEAN: For the next half-hour, we didn’t say much, just talked with our eyes. But when she finished her baking, she led me to a little round corner room with windows and window seats all round, kissed me, sat me down, and asked: “So, who are you, boy?”

WILL: She cuts to the chase, too.

SEAN: Well yeh. What’d ya expect? That Hamilton just picked her out at random?

MARK: So, Sean, who are you?

SEAN: “A decent guy who could use some help trying to become a better one.”

BRANDON: You catch more chicks with fun than with serious, guy.

MARK: Who says serious can’t be fun, roomie?

SEAN (laughing): Kinda her reaction, too: “Only game worth playing. Know how to make it fun?”

WILL: And?

SEAN (shrugging): I told her I thought that’s what sex is for.

(SCOUT, WILL and MARK crack up laughing. BRANDON, clearly finding the remark weird, resumes shoveling.)

SCOUT (recovering): Alright, we’ve pried enough. So you like her.

SEAN: God yes. She’s wickedly critical, especially of herself. Warned me that she blew it with her last guy ‘cause she was way too impatient. Said she’d tried to use him to fill an emotional void caused by a family problem, even though she knew he wasn’t ready.

SCOUT (looking at MARK): Uh, Sean …

SEAN: And she’s deep, but really funny. Like, when I mentioned that I’m not rich, she said that if everybody were, money would be useless. ‘Cause what we really want it for is to attract better mates, and the supply of them just doesn’t respond to demand. Then she asked, “Have I told you how nice it is to have a penniless hunk attracted to me?”

SCOUT: So, does this goddess have a name?

SEAN (rolling her name in his mouth): Liz. Liz Johnson.

(BRANDON stops shoveling, looks at MARK.)

SEAN: And she’s gorgeous. Brunette, thin, firm all over, totally in shape, into track and lacrosse. Deep brown eyes you could drown in. A neck you never wanna take your nose out of.

WILL: Uh, Sean …

SEAN (dreamily): Stacked, but not too much – the breasts move with her, not on their own. An ass that’s all muscle, totally tight – no bouncing, just glides and gyrates.

WILL (more emphatically): Sean …

SEAN: Strong hands, long fingers, and lots of attitude behind them. Man, when she was kneading dough today, she looked me all up and down while those hands did everything to it that I’d like them to do to me – rolled it, rubbed it, squeezed it, stretched it. Saying nothing all the time, of course. And just when I was totally digging it … Whack! She karate-chopped the dough. My nuts screamed in sympathy.

WILL: Earth to Sean!

SEAN: Not to worry, she’d never really do that. And then she smiled, flipped it over with a loud slap, balled it all up, put it in a bowl, covered it, handed the bowl to me, and said, in a low, sexy voice, “Put it someplace warm and moist and let it rise, boy.” She’s gonna be so great in the sack …

WILL (after looking first at MARK, then at SCOUT): I’m _soooo_ jealous. But I look a lot like Liz, don’t I?

SEAN: Oh, give me a break …

WILL: What, does she look more like Scout?

SEAN (suddenly seeing it): No, actually … Liz looks a lot like, uh …

SCOUT: Mark?

SEAN: Yeh, sorry. … That’s so weird.

WILL: No, it’s completely normal. Maybe Mark’s your type, just a guy version.

SEAN: I’ll take the girl version, thanks.

MARK (pulling his hood off): Who says you need to choose?

SEAN: Please, Will’s bad enough. Don’t you start, too.

MARK: Whatever. But I don’t think it’s weird that I remind you of a hot girl. Totally straight guys are so rare. And I do understand Will’s attraction. Don’t you, Scout?

SCOUT: Definitely. But Will fights it really well. Occasionally murmurs Sean’s name in his sleep, but other than that …

(SEAN rolls his eyes at SCOUT.)

WILL: I try, but it’s hard. Mark, this guy’s got everything. He’s captain of the junior varsity baseball team, starting tight end on the football team, and the meanest hockey center on any rink this side of South Boston. Underneath that parka are the best-developed pecs in Edmund High’s freshman class, a six pack that’s to die for, an ass you just know will never quit, and ...

SEAN: Krudski, cut it. It was funny, now it’s gross.

WILL (to MARK): Sean’s kinda shy.

MARK: I understand. I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out for you and him. But at least he’s given you an excuse to kiss Hamilton. That guy is so hot, and his boyfriend doesn’t seem all that interested. So maybe …

WILL: I wish. But that’s just not happening. There’s a problem – something I can’t tell you about.

MARK: Oh … Sorry again, Will. You’re a great guy, I’m sure something will turn up for you. … Anyhow, Sean, if you’re free tonight …

SEAN: Mark, I’m not interested.

MARK: Hear me out. We’ve got a poetry reading at my school. And I know Liz, we’re pretty close. If you’d like to come, I think I could persuade her to join us. Think about it. A hot girl on one side of you, a guy who looks like her on the other … could be fun.

SEAN: Still not interested. And Mark, Krudski’s just pulling your leg. I’ve known him all my life, he’s straight. And so am I. Straight. Not bi. Get it?

MARK: Oh. Sure. So am I … pretty much … But you really do seem like a nice guy. If you ever change your mind, you can reach me just by calling the main Rawley number. It can patch you through to my cell. You do remember my last name, don’t you, from this morning, when Scout introduced us?

SEAN: Sorry, it’s slipped my mind.

SCOUT: Johnson. Mark Johnson.

MARK: Same last name as Liz. Weird coincidence, huh?

SEAN (suddenly uneasy): Uh …

SCOUT: Nah, Johnson’s a pretty common name. What’s really weird is that Liz and Mark have the same birthday.

WILL: Yep. Born just minutes apart. In the same place, too. How weird is that?

SEAN (mortified): Oh crap. … You’re twins?

MARK: Uh - huh.

SEAN (wincing): And you’re straight.

MARK: Pretty much.

(BRANDON rolls his eyes at MARK, resumes shoveling.)

SCOUT: And I’m Liz’s last boyfriend. The one that wasn’t ready. But I still like Liz a lot, Sean. Kinda the way you still like Bella, I think.

SEAN (after a pause): So I’m a horny loudmouth. Mark, I should have saved the graphic stuff for Will. I apologize that I didn’t. But I don’t apologize for wanting to share my joys with my closest friend. And your sister is a joy.

MARK: You gonna apologize for planning to screw her, McGrail? Maybe tell me you’ll hold off on that?

SEAN: No. I like her, Mark. Her, not just her body. And I treat girls decently. Will and Scout will tell you that.

MARK (menacingly): How you’ve treated other girls doesn’t matter.

SEAN: Why?

MARK: They’re not my sister. Ditch the parka. We’re having this out, here, now.

BRANDON (again stopping his shoveling): Harry, you can’t fight this guy. He’ll pulverize you.

MARK (removing his parka, handing it to SCOUT): We’ll see about that.

SEAN (removing his parka and handing it to WILL): Do what you need to do, Mark. But I won’t fight you.

MARK (scoffing): A real man. Just what Liz needs. You know, Brandon, what you said about Hamilton’s judgment …

BRANDON: Yeh?

MARK: You were totally wrong. It’s perfect. And so are you, Sean McGrail. You’re everything that Will and Bella and Ham have told me you were. I’m wildly happy for Liz.

SEAN: You are?

MARK: Uh - huh. Wanna hug your girl’s twin brother?

SEAN: Uh, sure …

(MARK hugs the bewildered but relieved SEAN.)

MARK: Will, Scout, a little help here, please? You too, Brandon, if you’re up for it.

(SCOUT and WILL laugh and ground their shovels.)

BRANDON: Not keen on group hugs, thanks. And if you’re gonna do this one without your coats, why don’t you go over by the pumps where you won’t get snowed on?

MARK (taking SEAN's hand): Good idea.

(BRANDON resumes shoveling. MARK pulls SEAN to the cover of the gas station’s canopy, SCOUT and WILL following and carrying their parkas. MARK takes SEAN’s parka from WILL, drapes it over SEAN’s shoulders, leans SEAN back against a canopy column, leans into him, pulls in SCOUT and WILL, locks foreheads with SEAN.)

MARK: Much better. Sorry about the gay crap.

SEAN: It’s OK. I deserved it.

MARK: You just need to be more discreet, partly for your own safety. I could have been a mean S.O.B., and built like Brandon.

SEAN: Don’t worry. The lesson will stick.

MARK: Good, then we won’t mention it again. Certainly not to Liz.

SEAN: Thanks, Mark.

MARK: But there are some things I should tell you.

SEAN: Sure, shoot.

MARK: First, I know about Jacqueline Pratt. And this term I’ve grown closer to Hamilton Fleming than anybody except her and Scout. Ham wouldn’t have introduced you to Liz with my consent. That’s what he pulled me aside to talk about before he took you into the girls’ school.

SEAN: But you guys hardly know me. So why’d you agree? For that matter, why’d Ham suggest it?

MARK: We know you from Will and Bella. And Hamilton already told you why. You’re good. Ham and I admire how well you loved Bella.

SEAN (moved): Really?

MARK: Really. Telling Bella that being only “pretty sure” that Scout’s her half-brother wasn’t good enough, even though her finding out for sure might have cost you your girl … that was class. And getting out of Bella’s and Will’s way after what happened on your trip to Carson last August … that was class, too. You’re one of us, Sean, in the only way that matters.

SEAN: Thanks, that … means a lot.

MARK: It’s the truth. So if I catch you thinking you’re not good enough, because you’re not rich or not at Rawley, I’m gonna embarrass you.

SEAN: How?

MARK: I dunno. Something that tells you I disagree. Maybe kiss you?

SEAN: Oh …

MARK: Hey, I’m pretty much straight, but not totally. … Second – this is redundant, but I’m Liz’s brother, so I have to say it once – Love her well.

SEAN: I’ll try.

MARK: I know. And I’ll try to help.

SCOUT: So will I, Sean. Liz is great. And she didn’t blow it with me, I blew it with her. I wouldn’t let her in.

SEAN: Bella?

SCOUT: Yeh.

SEAN: Crap. Sorry. … But thanks, tips from an ex-boyfriend could be helpful.

MARK: Hamilton and Jacqueline will help, too. So will Anne.

SEAN: Anne?

MARK: My girlfriend. Jacqueline’s roommate at Grottlesex.

SEAN: Oh wow …

WILL: Her roommate by choice. As feisty as Jacqueline, apparently. And lovely. Scout and I’ve seen her with Mark here in town, despite Mark’s efforts to keep her hidden.

SCOUT: We’re looking forward to meeting her. … (To MARK:) This weekend, maybe?

MARK: Yes. Ham asked Jacqueline to bring her. She’ll come. … Sean, I’d like you and Liz to meet Anne, too. Partly because Liz wonders whether I’m gay. I’ve been hanging out with Hamilton and can’t bring Jacqueline’s roommate on campus while Hamilton still wants people here to think Jacqueline’s a guy.

SEAN: Mark, I’d love to meet Anne. But having your sister think maybe you’re gay when you’re not, and not being able to bring your girl to your school … that all really sucks, for all three of you. You must be glad it’s about to end.

MARK: I’m ecstatic, guy. … Look, the story you heard from Hamilton and Jacqueline on your trip to Carson last August – I know it cost you your girl, but apart from that, did you like it?

SEAN: Apart from that … yeh, it blew me away. What Hamilton did for Jacqueline … I could never do that.

MARK: Scared of emotional problems like Jacqueline’s?

SEAN: No. Bella isn’t exactly problem-free. I just don’t think I could have kissed a guy and meant it.

SCOUT: You could if you had to. If Will were as troubled as Jacqueline was last summer, and really needed you to do that, you’d do whatever you had to do to get him through it. And you’d be able to, even if you are about as straight as they come.

SEAN: You really think so?

MARK: If Ham and I didn’t think so, you wouldn’t have met my sister this morning.

SEAN (looking at WILL): That’s kinda comforting, in a weird way. Something you hope you never need to do, but ought to be able to do if you need to.

MARK: It is. And there’s more to Jacqueline’s and Hamilton’s story than you heard last August. Have you heard much more of it since then?

SEAN: Just that Jacqueline’s going to Grottlesex as a girl. And that Ham’s still letting everyone here think she’s a guy.

MARK: You and Liz will hear a lot more of it this weekend. Almost the whole thing’ll go public.

SEAN: Great. I’d love to hear it. Especially with Liz.

MARK: But Sean, I need to be the one to tell Liz that story, before it’s all over campus. I’m part of that story, and it’ll explain why I’ve been shutting Liz out of my life these past few months. That’s hurt her. I owe it to both of us to be the one to tell her why I’ve done that. And I need to do that alone.

SEAN: I understand. No problem.

MARK: So maybe Anne could tell you the parts you haven’t heard while I do that. In fact, I’d like you to hear it from her.

SEAN: Sounds great, thanks.

MARK: And Sean, Anne’ll tell you everything. Including parts we’re not telling everybody, just people close to us. Because I’ll tell Liz everything. And some of it’s kinda weird.

SEAN: What I’ve already heard is kinda weird … but good.

WILL: What you haven’t heard yet is almost as good. Scout and I heard most of it yesterday, from Ham and Mark. And it’s weird because the part you’ve heard was weird. But it’s all about to get less weird.

MARK (to SEAN): Except for you and Anne.

SEAN: Excuse me?

MARK: Twins are close, Sean. Being close to Liz means being close to me.

SEAN: You and Liz don’t, like …

MARK: No, we don’t. Never have. But Liz and I identify. We empathize compulsively.

SEAN: So?

MARK: We talk. Don’t expect Liz not to tell me personal stuff about you. And don’t be surprised if Liz wants to tell you more about me than you want to know.

SEAN: But you’re pretty much shutting Liz out now, aren’t you? So you can do it.

MARK: Sure I can, if I have to. For months, I’ve shut out the person who’s been closest to me all my life in order to try to help Jacqueline and Hamilton. That should tell you something.

SEAN: Speaks volumes. And I understand. Jacqueline obviously needed help.

MARK: She’s a lot better now. But as you get to know Liz these next few days, see what you think my shutting her out is doing to her, and to me. Think about whether you’d want me to do it to her forever.

SCOUT: You don’t, Sean. That’s the family problem Liz was talking about. And you’ll find the lack of privacy’s no burden. Mark’s discreet.

SEAN: OK. I’ll deal with it.

MARK: Good, but there’s more. Because Liz and I empathize intensely, we’re curious about each other’s lives. Each of us wants to feel what the other feels, physically and emotionally. So I’ll want to be close to you, and Liz will want to be close to Anne. It’s not gay, it’s twin – if Liz were gay, I’d want to be close to her girlfriend. And if you were a jerk, I’d feel nauseous. Get it?

SEAN: You mean you want to sleep with me?

MARK: If Liz does, part of me will. And part of Liz’ll want to sleep with Anne. Out of sheer curiosity. But that wouldn’t be treating you or Anne like a person. Neither of us will do that.

SCOUT: Sean, I was with Liz for a month. Mark never hit on me.

MARK: But I will want to be close to you emotionally. And Liz will want to be close to Anne. It could get intense. And, in our case, complicated.

SEAN: You mean, because you and Anne are close to Hamilton and Jacqueline?

MARK: That’s part of it, yeh.

SEAN: How close?

MARK: Let Anne tell you that, OK? But Hamilton’s well aware of the twin thing … and he set you up with my twin sister. That should tell you something, too.

SEAN: It does, and I’m flattered. What’s the rest of it?

MARK: The other two guys in on this hug. And Bella. Anne and I know her through Jacqueline. None of us knows quite where this is going, but …

WILL: We’re all pretty close. And we could become even closer. We’ve all been kinda sucked into what Ham and Jacqueline have got – which, yeh, is a little weird. But good.

SEAN: I’ve kinda picked up on some of that. … Anything else, Mark?

MARK: Only what you’re already feeling.

SEAN: Meaning what?

MARK: It cuts both ways, Sean. I’ve been leaning into you for a while now. You haven’t asked me to back off. Why?

SEAN (embarrassed): You look a little like her … you talk more than a little like her … you’ve got the same wicked sense of humor … the same self-critical candor … the same kindness … and you’ve used all that to get close to me fast, just like she did. It’s … confusing.

MARK: Right. Expect Anne to feel for Liz what you feel now for me. You might talk with Anne about how you two want to deal with all this. … (Disengaging somewhat from SEAN:) Any questions?

SEAN: Lots. But I’d like to ask them by just trying to love Liz and seeing what happens.

MARK: Perfect. … One last thing, Sean. The most important. You have to keep Jacqueline’s secret from Liz for the next few days.

WILL: If it were to come out wrong, Jacqueline and Ham would be screwed. Jacqueline could be seriously hurt. Hamilton would be devastated. Anne and Mark would be screwed, too, and really badly hurt. So would Bella and I.

SCOUT: And you and Liz would be history. She wouldn’t forgive that. Frankly, I’m amazed that Hamilton’s taking this risk. He could have introduced you and Liz a few days later much more safely.

MARK: I pointed that out to him this morning.

WILL: And he said?

MARK: Just that sometimes we need to throw caution to the wind. But I think he’d like Liz already to be with Sean when Jackie and Anne are here this weekend.

SEAN: Guys, I’ve kept this secret for three months.

SCOUT: This, and what Charlie says about who Bella’s dad is – for which I’m truly grateful, Sean. But keeping this from Liz, even for three days, will be hard.

SEAN: Why?

SCOUT: Sean, can you bed a girl you care for without being honest with her about something that’s upsetting her? Like that she worries that her twin brother’s a closet gay, when you know he’s not?

SEAN: Oh … I hadn’t thought about that. … How did you handle it?

SCOUT: Badly. I offered Liz assurances that I wasn’t free to back up with specifics, so she only half believed me. I should have phoned Jacqueline and told her I needed to bring Liz to Grottlesex to meet her. I’d suggest you do that if Jacqueline and Anne weren’t coming here this weekend. “Trust me, it’s not what it looks like” doesn’t cut it.

SEAN: OK, so I wait a few days. Not that hard. … (To MARK, grinning:) Besides, it’ll be way better when Liz has just met Anne … and you’ve just told Liz about Jacqueline and Hamilton.

MARK: It will. But meanwhile, how do you think my sister will take your apparent lack of interest? Especially given that she thinks the guy who introduced you is gay?

SEAN: Oh crap …

MARK: Not to worry. We can handle this.

(Inside the gas station office, BELLA and GRACE come downstairs with two large pitchers, set them down on the desk and go back upstairs.)

WILL: Looks like cocoa and muffins are about to be served.

MARK: It does. … Sean, when will you next see Liz?

SEAN: Tomorrow, I hope. That’s what I want to talk with my mom about. I’m gonna ask her to phone Dean Fleming and ask him to send Liz to our house for Thanksgiving dinner.

MARK: Great. That’s as good as done. Your mom will want to meet Liz, the setting’s perfect, and the Dean’ll be delighted to have a chance to do something for your mom. … Have plans for this evening?

SEAN: No.

MARK: There really will be a poetry reading at our school after dinner, Sean. Liz’ll be there – it’s the only thing happening. And our dining hall serves both schools, boys and girls. So come to dinner and to the poetry reading as my guest.

SEAN: Wow … Sure, thanks. … But how will that help keep Liz from wondering whether I’m gay, too?

MARK: This evening at dinner, I’ll tell Liz that you’ve heard she’s worried that I’m gay. That you know I’m not, even though I am close to Hamilton. That you’ve told me you can’t start a relationship with Liz while you have to hide from her something that’s important to her. And that I’ll tell her everything, including why I’ve had to shut her out, this weekend.

SCOUT (to MARK): Nice. … (To SEAN:) That’s all true, and it’ll make Liz think more of you for waiting.

WILL: And Sean, after you phone your mom, why don’t you tell Bella about Liz? Bella will want to meet her. So arrange to bring Liz here tomorrow night, after Thanksgiving dinner. Go do something with Charlie or Grace, leave Bella and Liz alone for a while, and any doubts Liz may have about you will vanish. Bella still loves you, always will.

SEAN: It’s mutual. And I do want Liz to meet Bella. But after Liz and I are together. To tell Liz I’d like her to meet my last girlfriend before then would seem … like I think I need a character witness.

MARK: Sadly, you may. Part of the price we’re all paying to help Jacqueline. But she’s worth it, guy.

SCOUT: Besides, Liz and Bella will really hit it off. And it’ll do Bella good to see you’re OK, and that a girl I was a jerk to because I’m still hung up on Bella is OK.

MARK: And Bella’s committed to becoming the girlfriend of your closest friend. You let her go to free her up to do that. Liz might like to know that.

SEAN: Yeh, but I can’t tell Liz that Bella’s the girl my best friend’s waiting for while she gets her head in order. Bella can talk with Liz about that, but I can’t. So how do I invite Liz to meet my last girlfriend without sounding like a wuss?

(Inside, BELLA and GRACE come back downstairs, carrying a tray of ten mugs and a large basket of muffins, which they set on the desk.)

SCOUT (shrugging): Tell Liz you’ve already talked about her with her last boyfriend, and ask her if she’d like payback?

SEAN (laughing): Yeh, that’ll do. … (Looking into the eyes of SCOUT, MARK and WILL successively:) Thank you. All of you. (He tightens the hug.)

(BELLA walks to the door. Seeing the four guys, she smiles, slips on boots, opens the door and walks toward them.)

BELLA (softly, kissing WILL on the cheek): Hi, guys.

WILL (disengaging from SEAN, wrapping an arm around BELLA, kissing her forehead): Hi, beautiful.

BELLA: When you’re ready, so are the muffins.

SCOUT (handing MARK his parka): Thanks, we’re very ready.

MARK: Famished.

WILL: Call in the third-years across the street, please, Scout?

SCOUT: Sure. … (He disengages and shouts to the crew across the street:) Hey, guys! Cocoa and muffins in the gas station! Come on over!

(BRANDON and the four third-years ground their shovels in snow banks and head toward the gas station office.)

WILL (to BELLA, keeping his other arm around MARK and walking BELLA and MARK toward the office): I need to get back to school. But I’d like to talk with you first. With Mark.

MARK: What about?

WILL: Thanksgiving preparations.

MARK (opening the door for BELLA and WILL): Good idea.

BELLA (entering, with WILL): Thanks, Mark. And yeh, we should do that.

(SCOUT goes inside the gas station office. MARK waits at the door for BRANDON.)

BRANDON (removing his gloves): You slackers have a good hug?

MARK (holding the door open for BRANDON): Very good. You’ll want to be in on the next one.

BRANDON (entering): I doubt that.

MARK (following BRANDON in): We’ll see.

 

 

INT - CHARLIE’S GAS STATION, NEW RAWLEY – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (EARLY AFTERNOON)

 

(As the first-year boys trickle into the gas station office, they wipe their feet on the mat, remove their gloves, unhood and loosen their parkas. SCOUT, MARK and BRANDON start to remove their boots.)

GRACE: Keep your boots on, guys. It’s a gas station.

WILL (to GRACE, kissing her on the cheek): Hi, Grace. How’s it going?

GRACE: Still have a roof over my head and food on the table.

WILL: And people who love you, and a smile you should show them more often. How’s school?

GRACE: Better, thanks to you and Bella. Have time to help me with some homework this weekend?

WILL: Sure. Friday night, OK? Right now, I need to talk with Mark and Bella, then run back to school.

GRACE: Thanks. What’s the rush?

WILL: I’ve gotta go kiss Hamilton for Sean. He can’t do it himself ‘cause he’s shoveling for me.

GRACE (to BELLA): This is what happens when you keep guys waiting, big sister. Scratch Will and Sean off your dance card.

BELLA: So try to keep Scout straight for me while I talk with Mark and Will. … Help yourselves to the muffins and cocoa, guys. We’ll be back.

(BELLA exits to the service bay, pulling WILL after her. MARK hangs his parka on a wall peg, grabs a muffin, puts it on a napkin, and follows. The four third-year boys pause outside the office, brushing snow off their clothes, unfastening their parkas, removing their gloves.)

BRANDON (to SCOUT): That’s Bella?

SCOUT: Yeh, why?

BRANDON: We’ve met. At the summer cotillion. I asked her to dance. She turned me down. I never got her name.

GRACE (to BRANDON): I was there, too. I would have danced with you.

SCOUT: Brandon Bradshaw, Grace Banks. … (Putting a muffin on a napkin): Grace, your job is to keep me straight, not to flirt with Brandon.

SEAN: And it could be hard work. Scout dated Mark’s twin sister last month, and ever since, all he can think about is Mark.

GRACE: Lucky Mark! Scout, you dated my sister, too, and she doesn’t have a twin brother. Just me.

SEAN (laughing): Grace, could I use the phone upstairs, please? I’d like to talk to my mom. Personal stuff.

GRACE: Sure. And when you tell her about Hamilton, tell her I think you’ve got great taste in guys.

SEAN: Thanks. I’ll be sure to do that. (He goes upstairs.)

(The third-year boys begin to enter the office.)

SCOUT (turning toward the entering third-years, obviously to introduce them to GRACE): So, Grace, Hamilton’s your type?

GRACE (turning with SCOUT): Scout, fourteen-year-olds can’t afford to have types. We’re just so grateful for anything.

SCOUT: And fourteen-year-olds aren’t supposed to do irony.

GRACE: Fourteen-year-olds aren’t supposed to do a lot of things. Hasn’t stopped me yet.

 

*       *       * 


	11. Scene 8 - Brownies and Hindemuth

INT - RAWLEY GIRLS’, RAWLEY RAG OFFICE, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - AFTERNOON)

 

(The space heater in the fireplace is turned off. The cushions and all four beanbag chairs are now at the corners of the mats nearer the fireplace. Six stacks of about thirty stuffed nine-by-twelve-inch envelopes lie atop a work table, next to six plastic trash bags tightly wrapped around similar stacks. Atop another work table are a long-handled stapler, a hole punch, boxes of hole reinforcers and staples, and a box of plastic trash bags. HAMILTON’s sweater now hangs next to his parka on the peg-rack by the door. Vampire Weekend’s debut album, currently on [Walcott](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXBnzvHQTDI), plays in the CD player.

DOROTHY and SUSAN, whisk broom and dustpan in hand, sweep countless paper-holes punched from calendars and dozens of mangled staples from the floor along the side of the mats farther from the fireplace. ALICE and WENDY drag two beanbag chairs back to their original positions at the corners of the mats farther from the fireplace. NANCY works with the curling weights. All five girls are somewhat disheveled, shirts hanging out of their jeans.

A light knock on the door. WILL enters, in open parka wet with snow-melt, snow crusted on his jeans, hair matted and shirt drenched with sweat.)

WILL : Hi.

WENDY: Will!

ALICE (going to the door meet WILL): How’d you manage to escape your chain gang?

WILL: A friend from town took my place.

WENDY (also going to the door): One can never have too many masochist friends.

WILL (looking around, surprised): You’ve finished the calendars? Almost three hours early?

ALICE (pushing WILL’s wet hair off his forehead): Uh - huh. Free until dinnertime.

WILL (nuzzling ALICE): Great. … Is Hamilton still here? And Jan?

WENDY: Washing up in the restroom off the print shop. They did the stapling and hole-punching.

WILL: So what’s up?

NANCY (setting down the weights): Hanging here till dinner. We’re beat.

DOROTHY (finishing her sweeping, standing): And If any of us leaves, we’ll all have to go bake.

WILL: Ham too?

SUSAN (shrugging): If he leaves, he shovels.

DOROTHY (emptying the dustpan into a wastebasket): And he’s even more beat than we are.

WILL: Mind if I join you?

NANCY: Krudski, you’ve got a key for a reason.

DOROTHY: Namely, so that you’ll stop asking that question.

WILL (scraping off his loafers): Thanks.

WENDY (taking and hanging WILL’s parka and scarf): But you’re dripping.

ALICE (picking up his shoes and putting them onto the rack): And you’re rank.

NANCY (tossing ALICE a towel from the shelf): Here.

ALICE (catching the towel and taking WILL’s hand): Come on, let’s go clean you up.

DOROTHY (handing WILL the broom and dustpan): Take these back for me, please?

WILL: Sure.

(WENDY bolts the door, then heads for the mats. ALICE leads WILL toward the print shop. At the doorway, they almost bump into HAMILTON and JAN, re-entering from the print shop and chattering to each other. Both are slightly wet, shirts loose and half-open.)

HAMILTON (surprised): Will!

WILL: Hi, Ham, Jan.

JAN (kissing WILL lightly): Good to see you, boy.

HAMILTON (to WILL): You’ve been holding out on me, Krudski.

ALICE (pushing through): Later, Hamilton. After Will’s stopped dripping.

(ALICE exits to the printing room, pulling WILL with her. HAMILTON watches them go, then shoots a reproachful look at JAN. She pulls him to join SUSAN, NANCY and DOROTHY at the mats. They all sit down, NANCY and DOROTHY leaning against one beanbag chair, WENDY and SUSAN against another, HAMILTON and JAN in the center of the mats.)

HAMILTON: So where were you all hoping to be this Thanksgiving?

WENDY: Susan and I were going to be at your mom’s table, Ham.

SUSAN: Our families aren’t all that keen on Thanksgiving, even though they live in the States now.

WENDY: But we'd planned to train up to Montreal on Friday for a week at Mont Tremblant - ski season opens there this weekend.

NANCY: They’re second-years, still playing the field …

HAMILTON: I’ve noticed. … But Nance, you’ve got a steady guy here, don’t you? Tom Phillips, our third-year math whiz and lacrosse forward?

NANCY: Yeh, smart guy. Smart enough to read the weather forecasts and split for home on Monday, even though I had to stay for two exams yesterday. So much for Thanksgiving together at his folks’.

HAMILTON: Nance, it’s not the end of the world.

NANCY: It’s the end of Tom and me. He just left, without a word.

HAMILTON (his brows furrowing): Hard to believe. … Dorothy?

DOROTHY: I was with a guy at Choate. A friend of Tom’s from a lacrosse camp two summers back. He took me to his home in Bryn Mawr last Thanksgiving, spring break, August break. Kept nagging me to take him home with me for a change.

HAMILTON: So?

DOROTHY: Hamilton, anything beats going back to Kansas.

HAMILTON: Too flat?

DOROTHY: Too black-and-white.

HAMILTON: Oh. … (To JAN:) Any happy stories in this office?

JAN: Two very happy ones, Hamilton.

HAMILTON: Were you and Alice hoping to get together with Fred and Steve this break?

JAN: Yes, for the first time since their fall break. Thanksgiving at Steve’s home in Scarsdale, then Saturday here, and a week in Williamsburg.

HAMILTON (taking JAN’s hand): Christmas break’s not that far off.

JAN (smiling): No, it’s not.

HAMILTON: So are your guys still rowing?

JAN: Still breathing, too.

HAMILTON: I’ll never forget their teaching me to row sweep on weekends last year. Taking turns with me in that old coxless pair. Then in a four with you and Alice. And the picnics and swimming at that island down the lake. … The four of you so made me want what you and Fred have, what Alice and Steve have.

JAN: That was the idea, boy.

HAMILTON: Why, Jan? I know my dad asked Fred and Steve to teach me to row. But why all the rest? Back then, I was afraid to ask, afraid I might make it end.

JAN: A big part of it was that we liked you – a bigger and bigger part of it as time went by, almost all of it long before Steve and Fred graduated last spring.

HAMILTON: I felt that.

JAN (laughing): I should hope so!

HAMILTON: Jan, you four taught me everything. … I can’t thank you enough.

JAN: Not quite everything, boy. And you thank us by using it well.

HAMILTON: I’ve tried. And what you didn’t teach me has been wonderful.

JAN: Good. It should be.

HAMILTON: I still don’t get why you did it. I mean, at the start, last fall, when you hardly knew me.

JAN (pulling HAMILTON to her and wrapping an arm around him): Ham, you remember that Steve and Fred applied to William and Mary early decision?

HAMILTON: Yes.

JAN: Well, Alice and I have done that this year. Early last fall, all four of us decided all to apply to the same school. We’d all been together for a year and a half already, and wanted to stay together. So we chose a school together. One we all liked, and thought we could all get into.

HAMILTON (awed): You’re serious …

JAN (slightly exasperated): Hamilton …

HAMILTON: No, I mean you’re serious … about one another … each couple, about the other.

JAN: You understand?

HAMILTON: Totally. … (Kissing JAN’s forehead:) Best wishes.

JAN: Thanks. … Ham, at the start of fall term last year, when the four of us decided to try this, we went to see your dad.

HAMILTON: Why?

JAN: It’s unusual, and it might lower our classes’ Ivy League placement ratios. We thought we owed him an explanation.

HAMILTON: Yeh … Any one of you would have had a good shot at almost any school. But if you’d all tried for the same Ivy, one or more of you might not have made it. … So what’d my dad say?

JAN: He offered to write letters of reference for all of us.

HAMILTON (his eyebrows rising): He doesn’t do that often. Partly because the only course he teaches is offered only to fourth-years.

JAN: We know. He’s had to collect information from other faculty who’ve taught us for longer than he has. And by the way, his political economy course is an eye-opener.

HAMILTON: He works at it.

JAN: It shows. Anyhow, that’s when he asked Fred and Steve to teach you to row. Not as a condition of writing our letters, he made clear. Just as a personal favor.

HAMILTON: Oh my god … It wasn’t really about rowing.

JAN: Only partly. We were all very flattered.

HAMILTON: I don’t know him …

(WILL and ALICE re-enter from the print shop, WILL with towel-dried hair and in a pair of very short faded low-rise blue denim jean cut-offs. They head toward the mats.)

NANCY: None of us really knows our parents yet, Ham. There’ll be time for that.

HAMILTON: Let’s hope so. … (To WILL, eyeing his cut-offs:) Contributing editor office attire?

WILL (sitting down near HAMILTON): Long story.

ALICE (turning on the space heater): Will’s clothes are drying on the radiators in the print shop. … Want a blanket, Will?

WILL: Yes please. Preferably with a girl under it.

(ALICE takes a blanket from the shelf, sits down next to WILL, wraps it around them. HAMILTON cocks an eyebrow at WILL.)

ALICE (to JAN): What’s up?

JAN: I was telling Ham how he got his rowing teachers last year.

HAMILTON: Alice, Jan, if there’s ever anything I can do to help with what you and your guys are trying to do, let me know.

ALICE (exchanging quick sidelong glances with JAN and WILL): Thanks, Ham.

HAMILTON: And … could I please ask a favor?

ALICE: Of course.

HAMILTON: When Steve and Fred are next here, I’d like to see them again. All four of you together. With some friends of mine. Including Will and a friend of his.

JAN: Our pleasure, Hamilton. … (Caressing HAMILTON’s face:) Where are you coming from, boy?

HAMILTON: I’ll tell you soon. This weekend, I hope.

WILL: Maybe you should tell them today, Ham. … And Bella and I’ve already met Fred and Steve.

HAMILTON: Really? When?

JAN: Columbus Day weekend, Ham. When Fred and Steve came here during their fall break.

ALICE: The four of us went by your house, said hi to your parents. The guys were sorry to miss you.

HAMILTON: I know. My folks told me. I was …

JAN: At Grottlesex, with Jake Pratt.

HAMILTON: Yeh.

JAN: What’s with that?

HAMILTON: I’m in love.

JAN: We’re happy for you. But what we’ve heard about that makes no sense.

HAMILTON: That I’m with a guy?

JAN: No, although Alice and I know you’re not gay. That was obvious last year. It’s been obvious again these past five hours …

SUSAN: Very obvious.

JAN: But emotional attraction can create sexual attraction. Strongly.

HAMILTON: Yeh, it can. … So what about Jake and me makes no sense to you?

ALICE: That Pratt left here and never comes back. You don’t behave like a guy in love with someone who left him and doesn’t really like him. You’re happy, you flirt, you’re confident.

JAN: And you’re gorgeous, and kind, and bright, and totally lovable.

NANCY: And even though you let Ryder provoke you into telling Pratt publicly that he wasn’t worth it at the end of summer session, Pratt was no prima donna. You apologized for that, I trust?

HAMILTON: Uh, yeh.

JAN: So what Jake ran from and is staying away from isn’t you. What it is?

DOROTHY: None of us six knows Pratt well. Only Nancy and I were here last summer …

NANCY: ‘Cause our guys were off at lacrosse camp again …

DOROTHY: And we didn’t spend much time with first-year guys. But everybody says Jake’s grades were great, that he never got into serious trouble, that he had some good friends …

ALICE: Including Will, who says he and Scout really like the guy …

DOROTHY: And that nobody gave Jake grief, except Ryder …

WENDY: Who gives us all grief. So why did Pratt transfer out? And why does he never come back?

SUSAN: The story stinks, Fleming, or we’re no newsgirls.

HAMILTON: Jake will come back here Sunday. I’ll tell you then why Jake left, and hasn’t been back.

ALICE (pleased): Really?

WILL: Yeh. Jake’s totally in love with Ham. Didn’t want to leave Rawley, but had to. Wants desperately to come back to be with him, but couldn’t. Until now.

NANCY: What’s changed?

WILL: Jake. Last summer, Jake felt unlovable and was doing some really dumb, self-destructive stuff. And Jake wanted Ham desperately. So even though Ham really likes girls, a lot, Ham gave up his sexual preference to save Jake.

(The girls exchange looks of amazement.)

HAMILTON (growling): Krudski …

DOROTHY: Ham, it’s OK. You’re among friends.

(The girls edge closer to HAMILTON.)

WILL: But Jake couldn’t stop doing that dumb stuff without leaving Rawley. So Ham helped Jake leave. In order to heal, to become who Jake really is. Ham was willing to give Jake up most of the time to do that. And now Jake’s healed, and is coming back. Jake hopes to transfer back here next year.

JAN (softly, while wrapping an arm around HAMILTON and kissing him lightly): Well done, boy.

(The girls edge still closer to HAMILTON, all affection.)

HAMILTON: It wasn’t really quite like that.

SUSAN (caressing HAMILTON’s head): Don’t be so modest.

WILL: Was anything I said inaccurate?

HAMILTON (eyes narrowed): Something important was left out.

WILL: Your choice, guy, not mine.

ALICE (to HAMILTON, a hand on his shoulder): Tell us the rest when you’re ready, Ham. Maybe Sunday, when Jake’s here. I wish Fred and Steve could be here to hear it.

HAMILTON: So do I. We’ll find a time for that.

JAN: Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.

WILL: Maybe there is.

HAMILTON (exasperated): Will! … (To ALICE:) Are you all in on whatever Will’s game is?

ALICE: No, we’re as puzzled as you are. But we trust Will. And there are things you don’t know.

HAMILTON: Obviously. How Will’s in on what used to be pretty much an all-girls’ activity. How he’s gotten so close to you and Jan. Why he’s here with us now. But I can only ask one question at a time.

JAN (laughing): And interrogation’s hard work. You hungry, Ham?

HAMILTON: I thought you’d never ask. I only agreed to work through lunch ‘cause Wendy said you have food here.

ALICE (amused, to JAN): He hasn’t changed.

JAN: You and Will clearly need to talk. The rest of us will get us something to eat. Will, come get us when you’re ready.

WILL: Thanks.

(The six girls stand, giving the boys light kisses or affectionate touches, and exit to the print shop.)

WILL: It went well with Liz and Sean. Really well.

HAMILTON (beaming): Great!

WILL: But that can wait.

HAMILTON: What can’t?

WILL: Ham, I think you should tell these girls everything, the whole story, here, now. Jacqueline, Bella, Anne and Mark agree. Just before I came here, Bella, Mark and I talked at the gas station, and phoned Jacqueline and Anne.

HAMILTON (surprised but flattered): Really? … Why?

WILL: You want the story told while Jacqueline’s here, right? To the whole school? Like, in just a few hours? And in person, with feeling, not in writing, right? Have you thought about how to do that?

HAMILTON: Not much. I suppose Jake and I’ll tell my folks, then Dr. Hotchkiss, then Lena, then show up for a meal at the dining hall and answer questions.

WILL: Bad idea. You may have to tell your parents, your godfather and Lena yourselves. But when you show Jacqueline to the school, be a mystery. Keep what you say short and vague. Then disappear for a while and let other people tell your story for you.

HAMILTON: Why? You, Scout, Bella, and Sean took it well from Jake and me on our walk to Carson.

WILL: That was different, in two ways. First, that was a small group getting close by trading stories. What you’re asking for now isn’t friendship. It’s forgiveness for breaking school rules, big time. And you’re too involved to seem objective and credible. If you tell it, people who hear it will be skeptical.

HAMILTON: Good point. How else is it different?

WILL: This’ll include a lot of stuff you didn’t tell on our walk to Carson. Like that you’d planned everything from the start, the night of the cotillion. You were hiding that even from Jacqueline then. And it’ll include whatever clever trick you’re using to make her leaving pass as official punishment.

HAMILTON: So?

WILL: So then the story’s ending was ambiguous. Now it has a happy ending. Or will, if people don’t think you’ve been too clever by half. To keep them from thinking that, you mustn’t seem to be blowing your own horn. If you want forgiveness, you’ve gotta seem humble. But what you’ve done is too good for you to seem humble, if you tell about it yourself. Or even if you’re there while it’s told. 

HAMILTON (after a pause): Thanks. And I don’t want to make Jake tell it alone. … So I need storytellers?

WILL: Yes. And the only people here who already know the story are not the ones you want telling it. Scout and I don’t know everything. Mark can’t tell it while leaving out the parts about himself – that would come back to bite him. All three of us are at least technically at risk of being booted, so if we tell it, people will be suspicious. And we’re all first-years – most upperclassmen barely know us.

HAMILTON: So you think I should get these girls to tell it.

WILL: Ham, they’re perfect. They’re news writers, practiced storytellers. They’re girls – and girls are way better than guys at telling love stories. There are two of them from each class we’re not in. And they can keep a secret for a few days.

HAMILTON: No lie. I didn’t even know you hang out here, not to mention whatever you’re up to with Alice and Jan.

WILL: They’re also popular, influential and respected. And some of them can talk about love very credibly. Most girls here would die to have what Jan and Alice have with their guys. It’s the real thing.

HAMILTON: Glad you’ve noticed that.

WILL (ignoring the innuendo): You like their latest prank?

HAMILTON: What prank?

WILL: You haven’t checked your e-mail, or the school LAN, today?

HAMILTON: I’ve been kinda preoccupied with making calendars. Got up at five to pick out photos and develop some new ones. Spent half an hour looking for a roll of film …

WILL: Let the girls tell you, then. … And Ham, they can be trusted not to tell the parts of the story you don’t want told to everybody.

HAMILTON: Will, I hardly know four of them. Jake and Mark hardly know any of them.

WILL: They’re all great girls. People you can let in.

HAMILTON: Come on, Susan and Wendy mess with Ryder.

WILL: It’s not what it looks like. They’re trying to turn him.

HAMILTON: Then they’re fools. Ryder’s not for turning.

WILL: Maybe. But they’re good fools. … Look, Ham – Bella knows these girls, too, and …

HAMILTON: I’d gathered that, Casanova.

WILL (again ignoring the innuendo): And based on Bella and me vouching for them, you have Jake’s and Mark’s and Anne’s consent to tell them everything. Not about Dr. Hotchkiss, obviously, but everything else. Get to know the four girls you don’t know well a little better, first, of course. See if you don’t agree. We have time for that this afternoon.

HAMILTON: Couldn’t I tell just Jan and Alice? Do we really need six storytellers?

WILL: Two’s not really enough to cover both schools well in a few hours.

HAMILTON: And why do you think I should tell these six girls the parts of the story that we don’t want them to tell the school?

WILL: They’re newsgirls. If you don’t tell them everything, they’ll suspect a lot of what’s left out, and they’ll grill you. Some today, more when Anne shows up here with Jake. You don’t want that. If they’re skeptical about the story, they won’t tell it well.

HAMILTON (glumly): Maybe Jake and I should just postpone this whole thing for a week or two.

WILL: Jacqueline, Anne, Bella, Mark and I all think you shouldn’t even consider that.

HAMILTON: Why?

WILL: Every day that you wait is a risk. You can’t foresee everything. Besides, these newsgirls are curious now, and one phone call to Grottlesex is all it would take to for them to learn the truth. They wouldn’t print it or rat you out, but if they feel you haven’t trusted them, they’ll be useless as storytellers. They won’t tell the story the way you need it told.

HAMILTON: Great, so I’ve got no choice.

WILL (gently): Did you at the cotillion?

HAMILTON: No. … OK, so how do I do this?

WILL: Just let them pull the story out of you. The newsgirl part of them will keep trying to do that, although the friendly part of them will try to control that.

HAMILTON: So we help the newsgirl part win? By making digging for the story seem less unfriendly?

WILL (grinning): Yeh. And you needn’t ask them to tell the story to the whole school. They’ll do that on their own. Just make them promise not tell anyone else until Jacqueline comes back here as a girl.

HAMILTON: OK. … But that doesn’t solve the problem.

WILL: That the story will make them wanna get close to you?

HAMILTON: Yeh. They already do, thanks to your already telling them the gist of it.

WILL: The good news is, it’ll make them want to get close to Jacqueline, too. To both of you together.

HAMILTON: Getting close to people with Jake isn’t a problem. But Jake’s not here. That’s the problem.

WILL: Yep, it is. You want it to end?

HAMILTON: Only if I can end it in way that hurts her less than it helps her.

WILL: Jacqueline trusts you to do that.

HAMILTON: How? If I don’t let these girls get a little close, they’ll feel hurt and may not want to have anything to do with Jake and me, or our story. But if I let them get too close, I’ll ruin the story I’m telling. They won’t believe it, and neither will I. I’ll feel like I’m betraying Jake, or using these girls, or both. And even if I pull it off, I’ll feel like crap afterwards.

WILL: A narrow strait between Scylla and Charybdis?

HAMILTON: Yeh, and I’m in no condition to navigate it. I’ve gone without for three days. And I like Jan and Alice so much that I’ve avoided them this term because I don’t trust myself with them.

WILL: How do you navigate it with Mark?

HAMILTON: I got close to Mark through Jake and with Jake.

WILL: Ham, this is for Jake, and she’ll be part of this. … (Pulling HAMILTON in under the blanket:) Trust yourself - and me ... unless you’d rather do this alone.

HAMILTON: Krudski, no way am I letting you out of this. It’s your race plan, on your home water. Besides, to stroke six girls I’ll want my seven.

WILL: Anything for our cox.

HAMILTON (wincing): So old, so lame …

WILL: You started it. … Ham, these girls won’t want to feel like crap afterwards, either. Yeh, they’ll want to get close to you today, but they’ll also want to be able to be close to you and Jake, as a couple, later. They’ll help us find a way to let them do both. Alice and Jan care about you, they’re good at this stuff, and they’ll call the strokes for the other girls. You’ll be in good hands, guy.

HAMILTON: I know. But I still think I’m gonna feel crappy afterwards. No matter how much the girls like the story, and no matter how good we are to them this afternoon, I’ll only be telling the story to four of them, and letting them get close, because I want something from them. We’re manipulating them, Will.

WILL: Yeh, we are. I think we’ll both feel kinda crappy afterwards. But we can make this right by making it a commitment to try to stay close to them emotionally. To be good friends. To try to love them, Ham. And as we make good on that commitment, we’ll both feel better about this.

HAMILTON: Sounds like a plan.

WILL: It is, and not just mine. Jacqueline, Bella, Mark and Anne will help, too. Meanwhile, you and I will try to make sure that these girls don’t feel used or manipulated. We’ll be as good to them as we can this afternoon, and stay with them this evening, through the poetry reading. Agreed?

HAMILTON: Agreed. Thanks, Will. … You know, they asked me this morning to shoot photos for The _Rag -_  starting with some to go with your column.

WILL: So do it. You’ll see things in town you’ve never seen. And I’d love to show them to you.

HAMILTON: I’d like that. But I want a desk here. And whatever access to this place you’ve got.

WILL: Be good to Jan, then.

HAMILTON: Oh, I will.

WILL: So are you ready to do this?

HAMILTON: As ready as I’ll ever be.

WILL: Good. We’ve kept the girls waiting too long already.

HAMILTON: Them and my stomach.

(WILL stands, tosses the blanket on a bean-bag chair, walks to the door connecting to the print shop.)

WILL (loudly): Ladies, our guest is ready for lunch. … (He starts do to some chin-ups facing into the print shop. Dropping to the floor after a few:) Oh my!

(Will retreats to the mat to make way for JAN, ALICE, NANCY, DOROTHY, WENDY and SUSAN, re-entering from the print shop, carrying a plate of brownies, a plate of assorted muffins, two bottles of mineral water, napkins, and clean mugs. They all wear identical white cotton wrap robes that reach to mid-thigh, with shoulder-cap sleeves and tie belts. The robes, loosely belted to reveal flashes of white hip-tie bikini bottoms and an absence of tops, are embroidered with the Rawley seal – the book-and-crowns – and the words “Rawley Rag,” on a hip pocket. The girls stop and strike poses in mid-room, inviting the boys to ogle them.)

HAMILTON (slowly sitting up straight): Wow!

SUSAN: You like?

HAMILTON: Uh … yeh. I love brownies.

NANCY: Wrong answer.

HAMILTON: And those things. And what they don’t hide much of. What are they?

ALICE: Summer casual … very casual.

HAMILTON: Obviously.

WENDY: Our attire for this evening’s poetry reading.

HAMILTON: No way.

WILL (sitting down next to HAMILTON): He’s out of touch.

JAN: Oh …

(The girls begin to settle onto the mats, very close to WILL and HAMILTON, with the plates, bottles, mugs, and napkins.)

JAN: Well, since the Dean has relaxed the dress code …

ALICE: And since all of us, especially the boys, are already quite tired of winter …

NANCY: And since the purpose of these evening events is too boost morale while we’re snowed in …

DOROTHY: We’ve suggested to everyone, by email and on the LAN …

WENDY: That at this evening’s poetry reading we all wear summer casual.

SUSAN: Very casual.

JAN: And so we lead by example.

ALICE: We brought the robes down here this morning to take a photo to attach to the e-mail.

JAN: Sadly, Will still lacks _Rag_ -logo lakewear. So he brought his cut-offs for the photo shoot.

HAMILTON (amused but incredulous): You cleared this with my dad?

NANCY (starting to pour the mineral water into the mugs): Before he and your mom left here last night.

DOROTHY: And Finn’s donating his suite for the girls’ changing area.

HAMILTON (laughing): You girls don’t waste much time.

SUSAN (grazing HAMILTON’s chest with the back of a hand): Uh - huh.

JAN (wrapping an arm around HAMILTON’s waist): Hands off, second-year. Seniority has its privileges.

ALICE (snuggling into WILL): Indeed.

SUSAN (backing off slightly): Life is so unfair!

DOROTHY (handing HAMILTON a mug): Would you like a muffin, Ham? We’ve got bran, cranberry, blueberry …

HAMILTON: Actually, I really do love brownies.

WENDY: Uh … they’re special brownies, dean’s son.

HAMILTON: Oh. … Well, I like special, too, occasionally. The rest of the day’s free, the company’s pleasant … and what I don’t know can’t hurt me.

ALICE: Help yourself, then. We’ve cut sixteen, two for each of us.

(Each of the students takes two brownies on a napkin, and a mug of mineral water.)

JAN: To our hosts tomorrow – may our work please them!

NANCY: Hear, hear!

(They all take a drink of mineral water, and the girls begin to eat their brownies. WILL does not.)

HAMILTON: So how did Will come to join the _Rag_?

ALICE: Josh Carson recruited him. He’s a second-year, covers boys’ sports for us.

HAMILTON: We’ve met. Isn’t Josh also an old friend of Caroline Busse’s, from Locust Valley?

WENDY: Yes. Caroline told Josh what Will did for her toward the end of summer term – first warning her about Ryder, then helping her pull herself together after Ryder hurt her.

(As WENDY talks, HAMILTON starts to pick up a brownie. WILL touches his hand to stop him. HAMILTON looks at WILL quizzically, but quietly leaves the brownie on his napkin.)

SUSAN: So at the start of this term, with Caroline gone, Josh made it a point to get to know Will. And since Will’s getting a reputation as a writer, Josh suggested that he join us.

HAMILTON (to WILL): That’s great. Your being friends with Josh could help Caroline a lot when she comes back.

WILL: Josh and I both hope so.

HAMILTON: And how is Will the only guy on the _Rag_ staff who hangs out here? Other guys who write for the paper just e-mail stuff in, don’t they?

JAN: Mostly, yes. But Josh has a desk now, too. … (She points:) That one.

HAMILTON: Where is Josh, anyhow?

ALICE: On holiday. Took this week’s exams Saturday and left Sunday.

HAMILTON: Why?

WENDY: To take a friend skiing at St. Moritz.

HAMILTON: Caroline?

WILL: Yeh. And he'll escort her back here to start winter term. He’s been in love with her for years, without ever telling her.

NANCY: He doesn’t talk about it, but it’s _soooo_ obvious.

DOROTHY: To everyone but Caroline.

SUSAN: Busse must be blind. Josh is so fit.

(The other girls, WILL and HAMILTON shoot mildly reproving looks at SUSAN.)

SUSAN: Alright! And he’s sweet, sharp, hard-working, and a cracking goalkeeper. … Better now?

DOROTHY: Much, thank you.

HAMILTON: Interesting. … But Will, how do you and Josh deal with the limits on boys’ access to the girls’ school?

JAN: At my request, your dad’s issued Josh and Will passes to the girls’ school. Free access to the common areas and the _Rag_ office anytime, without signing in or out.

HAMILTON: Those are scarce. For how long?

WILL: Indefinitely.

HAMILTON: No way. Passes like that are just for specific projects.

NANCY: Not any more. Times are changing. Slowly but surely, even here.

JAN: We think the new passes may be an end run around the Patriarch.

WILL: Who?

JAN: Your roommate’s grandfather. Scout’s dad and Ham’s have always wanted to take the school co-ed. But Scout’s grandfather, although progressive about everything else, has become a die-hard traditionalist about sex in his old age. And he keeps a tight grasp on the Calhoun family purse.

HAMILTON: You know about that?

JAN: I’m the editor-in-chief of the school paper, boy.

HAMILTON: Yeh, but you don’t print stories about that.

JAN: That’s why I’m still editor-in-chief. I don’t cause needless grief for your dad. And it’s pointless to advocate coeducation here until the Patriarch goes to his reward, don’t you think?

HAMILTON: Wish it weren’t. How’d you pick up on that?

JAN: Hamilton, the old goat rants against coeducation at every school social function he attends. I’ve heard him do it. He makes Scout’s poor father want to hide behind the potted plants.

WILL: So one way around him could be to issue passes more liberally?

JAN: Exactly. It’s a running battle. That’s why the girls’ school hasn’t had a headmistress for a year now, too – just faculty wives standing in. The Dean and the Board Chairman want to replace that job with an assistant dean for both schools, who’d still be a woman living at the girl’s school. But the Patriarch sees that as a step toward going coed – which it is – and nobody dares cross him. Right Ham?

HAMILTON: My lips are sealed.

JAN (kissing him teasingly): You’re sure about that?

HAMILTON (kissing her back): No.

WILL: So neither side will budge, and the job stays vacant?

HAMILTON (breaking off): Yeh. And my dad’s more overworked than ever.

WILL (caressing HAMILTON’s arm): Sorry, Ham.

ALICE (having, like all the other girls, finished her brownies): Guys, neither of you has touched your brownies. If you’re having second thoughts about those, have a muffin instead.

WILL (sighing plaintively): No second thoughts, Alice. It’s just that Ham and I feel sad that Ryder rates but we don’t. I mean, Ryder doesn’t have to feed himself. Some nice girls do it for him. (He bats his eyes at SUSAN and WENDY.)

HAMILTON: Yeh, that is kinda sad, isn’t it?

(JAN and ALICE exchange eye-rolls, break off bites of WILL’s and HAMILTON’s brownies, and pop them into the boys’ mouths.)

ALICE (to WILL): Happy now?

WILL (mouth full): Happier. But, uh, doesn’t Ryder get help with the chewing and swallowing, too? Wendy and Susan know how to treat a guy.

SUSAN: We’d treat two guys twice as well.

HAMILTON (nuzzling JAN): Maybe if we started with the second-years and worked up, class by class, Jan and Alice might get the hang of it.

WENDY: Possibly. Fourth-years are old, but some are still educable.

NANCY (exchanging amused glances with DOROTHY): Only one way to find out.

ALICE: Fine, but Jan and I have nothing to learn from you novices.

WILL (briefly kissing ALICE:) Mmmm … but Ham and I will enjoy showing off for our teachers.

(WILL kneels, sitting back on his haunches, facing HAMILTON, taps HAMILTON’s legs. HAMILTON shifts into the same kneeling position, facing WILL. The boys take a drink of mineral water, while the girls move the napkins and glasses, except HAMILTON’s and WILL’s, to the floor just off the mats.)

WILL: Wendy, start with me, please. … Susan, with our overdressed guest first, then we’ll switch, OK?

SUSAN (straddling HAMILTON, unbuttoning his shirt): Twist my arm.

(First WENDY and SUSAN, then NANCY and DOROTHY, then JAN and ALICE, take turns straddling WILL and HAMILTON, popping bites of brownies into their mouths, and helping melt them with their tongues, while hands explore torsos and the other girls caress the boys’ backs, sides and legs. The boys, WILL leading, conclude each of the six brief make-out sessions by slowly rising up off their haunches, lifting their partners up with them so that the girls’ backs are pressed together, gently grinding into them a few times in a slow, coordinated rhythm, each boy looking into the girl’s eyes as he settles back down onto his haunches, holding and nuzzling her until she’s ready to disengage. With SUSAN and WENDY it’s playful, with NANCY and DOROTHY reserved and tender. With JAN and ALICE it’s casually familiar on WILL’s side, but intensely controlled on HAMILTON’s. At the end, as JAN and ALICE slide off the boys’ laps, the belts of all six wrap robes, successively removed by WILL from HAMILTON’s partners, lie atop HAMILTON’s flannel shirt, belt and socks on the nearest of the bean-bag chairs.)

HAMILTON (to JAN and ALICE, settling down into a sitting posture, raising a glass of mineral water to JAN’s lips): Give Fred and Steve a Christmas kiss for me?

ALICE (accepting a drink from WILL): Our pleasure, boy.

WENDY (bringing in the plate of muffins): Anyone for a muffin?

HAMILTON (touching WENDY’s hand, taking a blueberry muffin onto his napkin): Definitely, thanks.

DOROTHY: Why don’t the rest of us just pick at one, and save the rest? We’ll be hungrier later.

SUSAN (putting a bran muffin onto the other napkin): That we will.

(WENDY returns the plate of muffins to the floor at the edge of the mats.)

HAMILTON (after taking the first bite of his muffin): Delicious. As were the brownies. And what they were served with. It’s good to be here with you … all of you.

NANCY: Then stay with us.

HAMILTON: Oh, I will. And I’ll start by shooting photos for Will’s weekly column. Will and I agreed on that while you all were in the print shop.

JAN: That’s great, Ham. But I hope Will didn’t need all the time that we were in the print shop to persuade you to do that.

HAMILTON: Nah, he spent most of it showing me how much he loves Jake and me.

ALICE: Did he?

HAMILTON: Yeh. I didn’t really appreciate that until today. But then, I didn’t appreciate his talents with girls until today, either. Will’s just full of surprises.

WILL: Think of it as payback for yesterday.

JAN (to WILL): What’d he do?

WILL: Embarrassed the crap out of me. Pretty much seduced me in front of Scout and Harry Johnson. Basically by showing me that he loves Jake, and Harry, and Scout and me even more than I knew.

ALICE (after exchanging an amused but intrigued look with JAN): Fleming, you’re incorrigible.

HAMILTON: Just trying to get close to Will. And there seem to be some things I should know about him that it didn’t seem quite right to discuss when you and Jan weren’t with us.

WILL: As someone said yesterday: “Go ahead. Push it out … just … gently, please.”

HAMILTON: I’ll try to make this easy. … Alice, am I right in thinking you six girls don’t have many secrets from one another?

ALICE: None that we can avoid having, Ham. Jan, Nancy, Dorothy and I share a suite. Susan and Wendy are roommates. And the four of us, and the two of them, are close. (She pulls SUSAN close and kisses her temple.)

HAMILTON: Great. Jan, Alice … I know you two love Fred and Steve. And I know Will loves Bella, always has. But you’ve let me see today you’ve gotten close to Will. And you’ve told me that Fred and Steve and Bella have met. I’m not asking you to talk about it – neither Bella nor Steve nor Fred is here with us. But may I tell you what I’ll think unless somebody tells me it’s wrong?

JAN (after exchanging smiles with Alice): Sure, Ham. And thanks, that does make it easy.

HAMILTON: I think that Will’s helping you and Alice through your year of separation from Fred and Steve, and you’re helping Will wait for Bella, with Bella’s and Steve’s and Fred’s consent.

JAN: You’re right, of course. And our guys, and Will’s girl, don’t need to be here for us to tell you that. They all like and trust you.

ALICE: Jan and I were trying to get each other through this year, Ham. But … we both really like guys.

HAMILTON (nuzzling JAN): Mmmm … I’ve noticed.

WILL: And thanks to Bella and the age difference, I’m no threat to Fred or Steve. And Jan and Alice are no threat to Bella.

HAMILTON: Will, I get it.

ALICE: You understand?

HAMILTON: All too well. I’m separated from someone myself. Although by only fifty miles, not five hundred, thank god.

DOROTHY: Your empathy’s lovely, Ham. But it’s revealing. An arrangement like that is unusual. Intuitive understanding of one suggests you’ve had one yourself.

HAMILTON: I have. I still do. Will’s known about it since yesterday. And to hide empathy because it reveals information about yourself … that’s like not rowing for fear of catching a crab, isn’t it, Will?

WILL (smiling): Yeh. We pulled through it yesterday, though.

HAMILTON (also smiling): We did.

NANCY: Empathy flows both ways, Ham. So may I tell you what I infer about your arrangement? Even though some people I’ll mention aren’t here with us? And without asking you to talk about it?

HAMILTON: Sure.

NANCY: Harry Johnson, obviously. If you have an arrangement like this, it’s with him, and he’s helping you through your separation from Jake.

SUSAN: Yeh. … And Harry’s cute, and you and he are cute together, Ham, but … why yet another guy?

NANCY: Because Ham’s more straight than gay, girl. A girl would threaten his relationship with Pratt more than a guy does. And Ham wouldn’t risk breaking someone’s heart. So Johnson probably can go either way but prefers girls. He probably can deal better with being Ham’s stand-in for Jake better than a girl could. I mean, could you deal with playing second fiddle to this mostly straight guy’s guy?

SUSAN (thoughtfully, looking at first at HAMILTON, then at WENDY, then again at HAMILTON): No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to pull Ham and Jake apart, but I’d want to become first fiddle.

DOROTHY (breaking off a bite of bran muffin): And Pratt and Johnson were friends last summer. Nancy and I’d see ‘em together at the dining hall, when Ham was eating at home. … I’d guess that Jake suggested Harry as a stand-in.

(HAMILTON and WILL look at each other, but maintain poker faces.)

HAMILTON: No comment, for the moment at least, given that Jake and Mark aren’t here.

WENDY: “Mark”?

WILL: Harry’s first name. Harry’s his middle name. Long story.

NANCY: Oh … OK. (She pours some more mineral water into the glasses.)

HAMILTON (casually): Speaking of empathy … Talented though Will is, one guy isn’t really enough for two girls, even as a stand-in, is he? Pity there’s not some other guy who’s close to Jan and Alice and Will, and who’s in love with a girl who’s not ready for him. And who’s a bit too young for Jan or Alice. Somebody like Josh Carson, for example. Pity he’s not here now, too.

(WILL, JAN and ALICE exchange looks. They, too, maintain poker faces.)

ALICE: No comment, at least for the moment, given that Josh isn’t here.

HAMILTON: Not quite reciprocal. I did tell you I have an arrangement, I just won’t say who.

(WILL, JAN and ALICE again exchange glances. This time, they also exchange nods.)

ALICE: Alright. There is another guy. And he’s … suitable for us, and we for him. Like Will. Happy now?

HAMILTON: Happier. But if I’m with the stand-in girl of some guy who’s snowed in here at Rawley with us, then … (He starts to disengage from Jan.)

JAN (pulling HAMILTON’s arm back around her): Stay.

HAMILTON: Happier still. … (He kisses JAN. Breaking off:) But arrangements like this are emotionally risky. Jan, Alice – either of you, or Will or Josh, would be all too easy to fall in love with. Be careful.

JAN: Ham, we know it’s risky. We’re trying to be careful. We set limits, we have rules. Bella suggested them. She said some friends of hers came up with them. They’ve been … helpful.

ALICE: We could share them with you, if you think they might help you and … whomever.

HAMILTON (after sucking in a breath, then looking sidelong at WILL): Thanks, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. … (To WILL:) Will it?

WILL (shrugging): “It’s knowledge. It’s meant to be shared.”

HAMILTON: Funny.

JAN (jaw dropping): Bella got all that from you, Ham?

HAMILTON: No, although I’m using it.

WILL (to JAN): Turns out Bella got all that from Jake. I didn’t know that until yesterday.

WENDY: Bella’s close to Jake?

WILL: Uh - huh.

JAN (fuming): Why is everything about Pratt such a secret, Fleming? ‘Cause if the girl that Alice and I are trying to help Will wait for is close enough to Jake to share stuff like this, maybe we need to know.

HAMILTON (gently): Maybe you do. But I’m glad you’re using those rules. … (Looking at WILL:) And you’re in good hands with Krudski. Cleverly kind hands.

DOROTHY: What’s going on with you two guys?

HAMILTON: Will already told you: payback. He’s pretty much seducing me in front of six girls. … (To JAN:) Mind if I ask a few more questions?

JAN (breaking off a bite of the bran muffin): We’d rather have some answers, but go ahead.

HAMILTON: Thanks. Will, who knows about Jan and Alice and you, other than your fourth and us here?

WILL: Bella and I told Jake by phone an hour ago, although neither Mark nor Jake’s roommate was in on that part of our conversation.

HAMILTON: Why’d you tell Jake?

WILL: I knew we’d be sharing it with you. Alice and Jan asked my permission to do that this morning, during our photo shoot, before Sean’s coming here enabled me to arrange to join you.

ALICE: You’re one of Will’s two closest friends at this school, Ham. Jan and I don’t like coming between you and him.

HAMILTON: That’s why you were teasing me this morning.

JAN: A little foreplay never hurts, boy.

HAMILTON: And other than Jake and me and you six, who knows?

WILL: Just Bella, Grace …

HAMILTON: Grace?

WILL: She was giving Bella grief about me. … And Fred, Steve, Scout and our fourth’s roommate.

HAMILTON: Scout didn’t know yesterday about the rules we’re all using.

WILL: Why should he? I want him to know that I’m not alone, that he doesn’t need to feel sorry for me. But he doesn’t need to know the details.

HAMILTON: And how did this get started?

ALICE: Columbus Day weekend, Fred and Steve walked in here, found Will writing a love poem to Bella, which our guys thought was sweet …

HAMILTON: _De gustibus non est disputandem_.

JAN (swatting HAMILTON): And Josh told them about Will and Caroline, and we talked, and they liked Will as much as Alice and I do.

WENDY: As much as we all do. Susan and I are more than a bit jealous.

ALICE: Steve and Fred wanted to meet Bella, so Will introduced us. And all four of us really liked Bella.

JAN: So we spent a lot of that weekend together. And with … our fourth.

HAMILTON: Whom Fred and Steve already knew from last year?

ALICE: No comment, Fleming. Anyhow, we all tried to get Bella off her butt … to go for Will.

JAN: We failed, obviously.

ALICE: But Bella, Steve and Fred talked behind our backs and came up with … this arrangement.

WILL: They suggested it over dinner at Fanny’s the night before Steve and Fred left.

JAN: At first Will and Alice and I and our fourth thought it was sweet of Fred and Steve and Bella to suggest it, but that it was just too weird.

WILL: So we just thought about it, and found ourselves looking at one another more and more, for three weeks. Then it just sort of happened.

ALICE: At the little party we held for Will’s sixteenth birthday. When he turned legal, it seemed less weird. And his being alone for that seemed so wrong.

JAN: Will never spends the night. Says that would be too much.

WILL: It would. And indiscreet. And a breach of school rules.

ALICE (grinning): The truth is, Jan and I can’t compete emotionally even with Scout, much less Bella.

WILL: Nope. No more than I can compete with Jan, much less Steve, for you.

ALICE (laughing): You see, Hamilton, he’s perfect. (She kisses WILL.)

HAMILTON: Yeh, he is. So what will you and Jan do when you lose him? I hope that’ll happen long before you and Jan graduate. And, much as I like you girls, anything I can do to help that happen, I’ll do.

NANCY: So will Jan and Alice, Hamilton. They want Will and Bella to be together. We all do.

SUSAN: Alice and Jan are down at Bella’s gas station at least once a week. Sometimes alone, sometimes together, sometimes with one of the rest of us, trying to help Bella not be so damned scared.

ALICE: And letting her know that Will is well cared for … but that she’s a bloody fool. Gently, of course.

DOROTHY: But none of us can just snap her fingers and make Bella stop craving security, stop refusing to take risks, after being abandoned by her mom.

JAN: We can’t stop Bella’s little sister from needing her.

WENDY: And we can’t make their mom stop from squeezing their dad for money and threatening to turf them all out.

NANCY: So any bright ideas you’ve got, we’ll gladly hear, Hamilton. But that girl has real issues. It’s gonna take a miracle to bring her around anytime soon.

HAMILTON (glumly): I know.

JAN: Losing Will would be hard, but good, Ham. So would losing our fourth.

HAMILTON: Will, you’re a lucky guy.

WILL: You noticed. … Have any more questions?

HAMILTON (snuggling into JAN): Nope. Thanks.

JAN: But we have. Krudski, isn’t it about time you told us why you’re here this afternoon?

ALICE: Jan and I are glad you’re here, of course …

JAN: But if you were the kind of guy who’d ask a friend to do his shoveling for him just to be with us …

ALICE: You wouldn’t be with us.

WILL: I’m here for Hamilton. Mostly to try to help him get to know us all better. But also to give him something.

HAMILTON: What?

WILL: Something Sean asked me to give you – this. (He pulls HAMILTON to him, kisses him intensely.)

HAMILTON (enjoying it briefly, then pulling back a bit, amused): It went that well with Liz?

WILL: Better. Sean’s out-of-his-gourd happy.

HAMILTON: Then don’t stop. … (He pulls WILL down onto the mat on top of him, reciprocating his kiss. Breaking off, to the startled girls:) Anybody gonna join us?

(All six girls, laughing, lie down with WILL and HAMILTON, who disengage slightly to lie side by side, each cushioning the other’s head with one arm, but freeing an arm to pull in the girls: ALICE and JAN between the boys’ legs with their heads on the boys’ stomachs; WENDY and SUSAN at the boys’ sides with their heads on the boys’ chests; DOROTHY and NANCY nestling behind WENDY and SUSAN with their heads on the boys’ raised-back upper arms, their faces next to the boys’.)

HAMILTON (briefly kissing NANCY): Mmmm … lovely. … (To WILL:) So tell me.

WILL: Sean was so smooth. As was Liz. But let them tell you about that, with Jake, when they’re ready. And when Sean found out that he’d be shoveling with Liz’s twin brother and her last boyfriend, who still really likes her, he could hardly believe his luck. I could have charged him to let him shovel with them.

SUSAN: You’re talking about Liz Johnson, Harry’s twin sister?

WILL: Uh - huh. And Sean McGrail, my friend who’s shoveling for me. A freshman at Edmund High. His mom’s the PTA president.

ALICE: Oh, the guy Ham mentioned when he first got here this morning. So Ham’s a matchmaker now?

WILL: Oh yeh. And not just for Liz and Sean. For Bella and me, too.

NANCY: But you’ve known Bella, like, forever.

WILL: And I’ve been in love with her forever. But only when we first spent time with Jake and Hamilton did it dawn on Bella that she loves me.

DOROTHY: Really?

WILL (nuzzling DOROTHY): They’re inspiring. See for yourselves, this weekend. … (Turning to HAMILTON:) And Ham … next term, when Caroline comes back …

HAMILTON (softly): Of course.

(WILL gives HAMILTON a brief, affectionate kiss. The girls exchange smiles and nestle into them.)

HAMILTON (breaking off): Lena and I watched Josh and Caroline dance at the cotillion. Everyone did. Like Nancy says, what they’ve got is obvious. The problem’s not that Caroline doesn’t feel it, is it?

WILL: No, it’s not.

HAMILTON: So it’s that she’s scared of it. Why?

WILL: Caroline’s been uprooted and moved around the world so often that it’s second nature to her. Josh and I think she can’t really believe she’ll ever be able to stay anywhere or with anybody. And she’s had to move away from Josh before, when they liked each other but were too young to do anything. She’s scared to make it hurt worse next time by getting involved with him.

HAMILTON: Sounds right. Ryder got her to trust him by going to Italy with her. So maybe Josh knows what he’s doing, following her to Switzerland this week.

WILL: He does, but neither of us thinks that’ll be enough.

HAMILTON: Jake and I’ll try to help, guy. But what might most help Caroline find the courage to go for Josh is for Bella to find the courage to go for you.

WILL: Because of what you told me about during the snowball fight yesterday?

HAMILTON: Yeh.

JAN (after a pause): You two cupids done scheming now?

HAMILTON (nodding): Sorry.

JAN: Don’t be. When Caroline comes back, we’ll all try to help.

NANCY: Some music, Ham?

HAMILTON: Sure, thanks.

(NANCY gets up, goes the bookshelf housing the CDs and CD player, quickly selects a [disk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-YT3Rd4ZJg), inserts it into the CD player. She pushes three cushions under the heads of WILL, HAMILTON, and DOROTHY , and a fourth to where her own head has been resting.)

NANCY: Jan, Alice, a blanket?

ALICE: Yes, please.

(NANCY picks WILL’s discarded blanket up off the bean-bag chair and spreads it over JAN and ALICE, also covering the legs of WILL, HAMILTON, WENDY and SUSAN, and DOROTHY’s lower legs. She moves the two napkins and two glasses off the edge of the mats, walks to the door, dims the lights, walks back to the mats, then lies back down, snuggling back in next to HAMILTON and SUSAN.)

JAN: Welcome to _The_ _Rag_ , Hamilton.

HAMILTON (closing his eyes): Thanks. This is lovely.

ALICE: We aim to please.

HAMILTON: You do. So does this music. What is it?

NANCY: Hindemuth’s [Mathis der Maler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony:_Mathis_der_Maler). It goes well with brownies. Let’s just listen.

 

  
*       *       * 


	12. Scene 9 - Winning changes everything

EXT - NEW RAWLEY TOWN COMMON – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (DAY - AFTERNOON)

 

(Snow continues to fall. SCOUT, MARK, BRANDON, and SEAN, near the bandstand, shovel one of four bench-lined walkways between the bandstand and the corners of the common. The bandstand, a circular walkway around it, and another walkway to a corner of the common have already been shoveled. The boys shovel wordlessly, too tired to want to talk.

SCOUT’s mobile phone rings. He takes it out, opens it.)

SCOUT: It’s my dad. Excuse me.

(SCOUT grounds his shovel at the side of the walkway, then walks up onto the bandstand.)

SCOUT: Hi Dad. You guys give birth to a budget yet? … Great, congratulations! … Yeh, I’m sorry I can’t, too. But the Edmund High PTA organized town families to host all us Rawley students for Thanksgiving dinner. … Really? You never mentioned that. … Who? …

(SCOUT walks to the edge of the bandstand farthest from the other boys, faces away from them.)

SCOUT (softly): Susan O’Connell, you’re sure? … Dad, she’s Susan Krudski now, my roommate’s mom. … I know it’s a small town, but let’s keep that under wraps, OK? … Thank you. …

(SCOUT walks back to the center of the bandstand, watches his friends shovel.)

SCOUT: Yes, we do. Especially, this year, for your re-election. … Wow, endowing a scholarship this time? … No, it’s a great idea. … I’m sure the Dean will think of something good. … Well, there’s too much shoveling, otherwise it’s all great. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. … Then get over to Union Station and catch your train. …

(SCOUT starts down the bandstand steps, stops halfway down them.)

SCOUT: Oh, of course. No wonder I couldn’t reach Mom on the landline yesterday. Give my love to her, J.J. and my sisters, please. … I’ll call tomorrow. Bye, Dad.

(SCOUT closes the phone, rejoins the other boys.)

BRANDON: So what’s up with your dad?

SCOUT (picking up his shovel): They passed a budget and recessed for the holiday.

MARK: That’s great. But can he get home?

SCOUT (resuming shoveling): No, Greenwich is snowed in, too. But my mom took my sisters and brother to Washington Monday evening. They’re spending the holiday at our house in Georgetown.

SEAN: Sounds like a great mom.

SCOUT: She is. But you should talk.

MARK: Nothing else?

SCOUT: Just the usual.

 

*       *       *


	13. Scene 10 - Cours d’Amour

INT - RAWLEY GIRLS’, RAWLEY RAG OFFICE, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (DAY - AFTERNOON)

 

(All remains much as it was when last seen. The space heater remains turned on in the fireplace. No other lights are on, and the outdoor light from the windows near the ceiling dims as the short late autumn day wanes. The serving plate of muffins, still mostly uneaten, the empty brownie-serving plate, and eight water glasses and napkins, all lie on the floor near the edge of the mats.

WILL, HAMILTON, JAN, ALICE, NANCY, DOROTHY, SUSAN and WENDY cuddle on the mats under a blanket, listening to the final movement of _Mathis der Maler_ – “The Temptation of St. Anthony.”

Hindemuth’s symphony ends.)

WILL: That was intense.

HAMILTON: It was.

NANCY: Something less heavy next?

JAN: Could we just talk, please?

NANCY: Sure, you’re the E.C.

HAMILTON: Talk about what?

JAN: You, boy.

HAMILTON: That’s a dull subject, girl.

ALICE: Not to us, Hamilton.

SUSAN (nuzzling a bit): Not dull at all.

ALICE: Ham … Steve and Fred really wanted to talk with you, back at Columbus Day, when they were here.

JAN: That’s why they wanted to come here this weekend, too.

ALICE: Few of their other old friends would be here …

JAN: But we knew you’d be here, home for the holiday …

ALICE: Not off at Grottlesex, as is your wont.

JAN: Last fall and spring we all grew very fond of you.

ALICE: And we’ve all worried about you and Jake.

HAMILTON: Don’t. And this weekend, when Jake’s here, we’ll talk ... about getting together, all six of us, soon.

JAN: Good, let’s. But, Ham, there is one other question we’d all like to ask about Jake.

HAMILTON: Ask away.

NANCY: Ham, is Jake sure he’s gay? Could he go either way? Has he tried girls, like, at all, even once?

DOROTHY: If Jake’s not totally gay, and he’s well now …

ALICE: Then maybe you both might try dating two girls.

JAN: It needn’t tear you apart.

NANCY: In the long run, it might make you closer … and keep you both close.

HAMILTON: Jake prefers guys.

NANCY: That’s not really the question.

DOROTHY: The question is more: are there girls Jake could love?

ALICE: Ham, being gay’s really hard. If Jake has a choice …

JAN: You really should help him not to choose that.

NANCY: So, is the guy you love sure he’s completely gay?

WILL: Nance, that’s a question for Jake, not for Ham.

HAMILTON: Thank you, Will.

DOROTHY: OK, here’s one that’s not, Hamilton: Have you tried helping Jake Pratt to like girls? ‘Cause if Jake loves you, he’ll like lots of things more with you than he ever has liked them alone.

(WILL and HAMILTON exchange conflicted looks – at once amused, moved and pained.)

JAN: You could try that, without threatening Jake, with two straight girls who’re close and who want to stay close.

ALICE: They’d want to keep you together, all four of you, and to end up as two couples in love.

NANCY: Like Jan and Alice and Fred and Steve, Hamilton. That’s really kinda nice, isn’t it?

HAMILTON (dreamily): Yeh.

(HAMILTON starts to kiss NANCY, but WILL pulls NANCY’s head away from him.)

HAMILTON: Will! What the heck …?

WILL: Keeping Nance safe from you, Ham. Nance, come here with me. Wendy, you with Ham, please.

(NANCY and WENDY exchange shrugs and comply, sliding across the mats behind the boys’ heads. DOROTHY slides down WILL to rest her head on his chest. NANCY nestles in on WILL’s arm, behind DOROTHY, and WENDY on HAMILTON’s arm behind SUSAN. All six girls exchange contented smiles.)

NANCY (to WILL): Happy now, bossy boy?

WILL: Yes, thank you. Ham?

HAMILTON (kissing WENDY): Uh - huh. (Breaking off, turning to WILL): But I would like to know why you did that.

WILL: Because our third-years give up much too easily.

NANCY: Face the facts. Tom and Matt left us.

DOROTHY: They’re gone.

WILL: Sorry, not buying it. Jan, help me out here, please?

JAN: Alice and I spent all night doing that.

ALICE: What’s going on with them, time will tell soon enough. Meanwhile, we’re here for them. Just let it be.

WILL: Look, I’m just saying that Nance and Dot shouldn’t be offering, quite yet, to date Jake and Ham.

HAMILTON: What?

(The girls crack up laughing.)

HAMILTON: They weren’t doing that.

WILL (chagrinned): Sounded like that to me.

NANCY (recovering): No, we weren’t, Hamilton. We’re both too old.

DOROTHY: And though we’re close, you’d want girls who are closer, Ham.

NANCY: Not that the notion’s without its appeal.

DOROTHY: We trust it’s clear that if you were not spoken for …

NANCY: We’d all have jumped you an hour ago.

DOROTHY: And Jake is cute, funny, smart, and _soooo_ ballsy …

NANCY: He needs a new wardrobe, but once he had that …

DOROTHY: Plenty of unattached girls would date you two guys.

WENDY: Including, Hamilton, two girls right here.

SUSAN: Including, if you’d like, Wendy and me.

HAMILTON (softly, after a pause): You mean that?

WENDY: Yes. We don’t know whether Jake could love girls, but we’re willing to help him find out.

SUSAN: Shouldn’t you do that too? Try to help Jake find some girl that he likes, maybe even could love?

WENDY: Just in case, someday, he might want a family?

SUSAN: And more than you by his side when he’s old?

WENDY: Susan and I aren’t the only girls you could find …

SUSAN: And maybe you can find better than us …

WENDY: But if you’ll have us, we’ll give it our best shot, Ham.

SUSAN: Just help us give Jake and you what you need.

HAMILTON (taking his arm out from under WILL’s neck and pulling WENDY and SUSAN on top of him): You girls are better than I could have dreamed of. You’re all that two guys in love ever could want. Jan, please excuse me.

(JAN, after giving HAMILTON’s stomach a quick kiss, rises off of HAMILTON as he begins to make out with the surprised but not displeased second-years. JAN pulls the blanket back up over them and lies down next to HAMILTON, watching, nuzzling WILL’s hand.)

WILL (to ALICE): I’ll re-read my Cyrano.

ALICE: Or your law. No one should plead his own cause.

WILL: Brownies aren’t all you cooked up in the print shop, huh?

ALICE: It’s what we do, boy. Nance, shut him up, please.

(NANCY rises up to lift her head above WILL’s and kisses him. DOROTHY nuzzles and hand-grazes his chest. ALICE engages his lower abdomen. WILL, arching appreciatively, takes his hand out from behind his head to caress NANCY’s head.)

HAMILTON (breaking off, to WENDY and SUSAN): I really need to bring Jake into this. … (He digs his mobile phone out of a jeans pocket.) May I?

WENDY: Sure. But we don’t need an answer today.

SUSAN: Ham, this can wait till Jake’s here.

HAMILTON: No it can’t. … (He opens the phone, punches a button, waits, continuing to caress WENDY and SUSAN.) Hi Jake. … They’re done, but I’m still at the _Rag_ office. … Yes, they’re all here with me now. So is Will. Something’s come up that we need to discuss with them. Something so good I can’t handle it alone. … No, not yet. … Yes, I do. … Yes, but let’s do this first. … Thanks, then I’ll put this on speaker. (He fiddles briefly with the phone.) We’re on. So, did Will tell you who’s here with us?

JAKE: Yes. I know Nancy and Dorothy from summer term. Alice, Jan, Wendy and Susan I don’t yet know. Hi, girls.

JAN, ALICE, NANCY (breaking off), DOROTHY, WENDY and SUSAN: Hi, Jake.

JAKE: Dot, Nance, you girls OK?

DOROTHY: Not great. Our guys split.

JAKE: Will told me. But hang in there. … Hamilton, be there for them.

NANCY: Jake, he is.

JAKE: Good, let him, really. … So, Hammy, what’s this about? What’s so good that you can’t handle it, boy?

HAMILTON (softly): I’ve just been shown that the miracles given us are just a few of a whole cupboard full. That if we didn’t get those we are given, then we would get others that we never see. Usually we just see those that we’re given as they’re taken out of the cupboard for us. We never dream that still more are inside it, but I was just given a peek, and it’s full.

JAKE: Hamilton, you’ve spent too much time with Krudski.

HAMILTON: No, Jake, this is Wendy and Susan, not Will.

JAKE: Great, so philosophers sometimes wear pantyhose.

HAMILTON: It’s not philosophy, Jake. This is love.

JAKE (suddenly serious): Keep goin’.

HAMILTON: Last summer, at the cotillion, I got a miracle.

JAKE: Boy, I got two.

HAMILTON: What would have happened if I hadn’t gotten mine? Would I have loved you enough to have stayed? Could we have lasted, Jake? I’ve wondered ever since. Wondered and doubted. But Jake, now I know.

JAKE: Could we have?

HAMILTON: Yes, with help. And we’d have gotten help. Like I just said, there’s a whole cupboard full.

JAKE (gently): I’ve seen inside it, too, Hamilton. I've had my own back-up miracle, boy. Mine was Mark.

HAMILTON: Yes, and you’ve shared it and nurtured it beautifully. Could we please try to do that with mine, too?

JAKE: Yes, if you’ll stop beating up on yourself, Hammy. No one can love well alone. We need help.

HAMILTON: Well, some’s on offer. From Susan and Wendy here. They’d like to date us, Jake. That’s why I called.

JAKE (softly, after a pause): Susan?

SUSAN: Hi, Jake.

JAKE: Hi, girl. … Wendy?

WENDY: Jake, there’s no rush. Dating you’s our idea, phoning you’s not. Susan and I thought this best left till you’re here, too. Ham said it couldn’t wait. We’re not sure why.

JAKE: He’s right, girls. Hamilton, how did this happen?

HAMILTON: Will told them our story, but left one thing out.

JAKE: Krudski! You wanker! God, what were you thinking?

WILL: Jake, look on the bright side – they’re pretty, they’re smart …

JAKE (fuming): I’m sure they are. Hamilton clearly likes them. The problem’s not them, Will. The problem is me.

WILL: I think they’ll like you. They’re straight, but they’re close, Jake. That’s part of why they think this might work out well.

JAKE: Oh … OK, better. But others are in this – including, I’d hoped, maybe Bella and you.

WILL: We hope so, too. And we’ll help make this right. That’s less hard than a lot that you’ve already done. Keep dreaming dreams that are worthy of us, please, and stop asking whether we’re worthy of them.

JAKE: Hamilton?

HAMILTON: They’ve told me how hard and lonely it is to be gay …

JAKE: And they’d save us from that?

HAMILTON: Yeh. Without making us give up each other, if you could like girls, which they’re willing to chance. I told them you prefer guys, but I couldn’t quite …

JAKE: Say that I can’t enjoy girls, ‘cause I can.

HAMILTON: Yeh.

(The _Rag_ girls look pleased. WENDY and SUSAN nestle contentedly into HAMILTON.)

JAKE (after a pause): Alright, Hamilton, I see your miracle. And yes, you’re right, we can’t turn it away. So … Susan, Wendy?

SUSAN: Still here, Jake.

JAKE: You’re very kind. But there’s a lot that you should know and don’t. Do you have time now to hear a long story?

WENDY: Yes, hours. We’re snowed in, Jake.

JAKE: I know. Same here. So … Hamilton will tell you everything, all of it. Right, Hamilton?

HAMILTON: Yes. We don’t have much choice.

JAKE: Wendy and Susan, if, after you’ve heard that, you still want to be close to us, then we will. Just as we are, at the start, if you like, but we’ll find better ways to be close later on. And if you’d like to start now, just with Hamilton, go ahead.

HAMILTON: No way, Jake! Not without you.

JAKE: I’ll be there soon. Meanwhile, think of me, Hamilton. Will, please stand in for me?

WILL: With pleasure, Jake.

SUSAN: Jake, that’s absurd.

JAKE: Maybe less than you think, girl. Hear Hamilton out, and then follow your hearts. … But there’s one favor that he and I need to ask all six of you girls to do for us, please.

WENDY: What, Jake?

JAKE: Please keep what he tells you a secret until I’m at Rawley, and there honestly. After you’ve heard it, you’ll know what we’re asking – and why. Lots of people could be badly hurt. You won’t be breaking school rules by not telling, and I plan to be there by Sunday, OK?

JAN: This is Jan Pierce, Jake. Consider that done, please. And we all look forward to seeing you soon.

JAKE: Thanks Jan. It’s mutual. What you, Fred, Alice and Steve did for Hamilton …

JAN: Our pleasure, Jake.

JAKE: You did it well, thank you. I owe you all. And I’m glad you and Alice have Will, and he you. And since the guy who helps Will with you’s gone today, Hamilton has my consent to stand in.

HAMILTON: Jake, you can’t do this!

JAKE: I can, boy. You love them, and we want a bond with them. … Dorothy, Nance?

DOROTHY: Jake, don't be dumb. Your guy's straight, and we’re single now.

JAKE: Dot, you’re both decent, and hurt, and no threat. Let Will and Hamilton help you to not give up. You need to trust love and hope, and that’s hard.

DOROTHY (laughing, caressing ALICE’s head): You sound like Alice and Jan, Jake. Our suitemates kept Nance and me up half last night doing that. Ham and Will might do it better, though, I admit.

JAKE: Compliments, Hammy. I’ll take mine and go.

HAMILTON: Jake …

JAKE: Tell them. Whatever happens, I love you. Relax, trust yourself, and trust them. I do. Will?

WILL: Yes, Jake?

JAKE: Don’t leave him tonight, please.

WILL: I won’t.

JAKE: Thanks, Will. I’ll see you all when I see ya.

WILL: You will. 

(The phone goes dead. HAMILTON closes it. SUSAN takes it and tosses in onto the bean-bag chair atop HAMILTON’s shirt and socks and the robe belts. WILL and the girls lie quietly, looking at each other, avoiding eye contact with HAMILTON, who, after brooding for a few moments, turns to WILL.)

HAMILTON (to WILL): In for a penny … ?

WILL (softly): Yeh, in for a pound, guy. … Excuse me, girls.

(WILL stands and walks to the bookshelf. WENDY and SUSAN slide down HAMILTON to straddle his legs, their heads on his stomach. NANCY and DOROTHY nestle into HAMILTON on the side vacated by WILL, ALICE joins JAN in nestling into HAMILTON on the other side, JAN’s and NANCY’s heads on HAMILTON’s arms, ALICE’s and DOROTHY’s on his chest. All six girls gently nuzzle him.)

WILL: Mind if I put on a tune?

NANCY: Krudski, you always put on the same thing.

WILL (removing a CD from the shelf and inserting it into the player): It goes well with Ham’s story, though. Humor me, please. (He takes a blanket from the shelf, slides in next to JAN, spreads his blanket over her and himself. As Hans Zimmer’s “[True Romance](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ab1l2TwFp8)“ theme begins to play, he starts to remove JAN’s robe.)

JAN (helping and nuzzling WILL): Mmmm … That’s nice, Will. You’ve been too much with Alice.

WILL (tossing JAN’s robe out from under the blanket): ‘Cause you’ve been with Fleming all afternoon, Jan.

JAN (now face-up, her head on HAMILTON’s arm): Ham is our guest. It’s my job, as the E.C., to welcome him. (She pulls WILL down onto her.)

WILL: Girl, that excuse is so lame. (He kisses JAN.)

WENDY: So Ham, you ready?

HAMILTON: Sure.

ALICE: Good. But be warned: It's not just what you say – how you say it counts, too.

(WILL disengages slightly from JAN, helps her to turn to face HAMILTON, then spoons in behind her. The girls all join in lightly teasing HAMILTON.)

SUSAN: Show us that nothing distracts you from thinking and talking about the guy you claim to love.

NANCY: Just lie back, close your eyes, talk about Jake …

DOROTHY: And imagine he’s doing what we do to you.

WENDY: If your wits stray from your story as we stimulate …

ALICE: Maunder as we masticate and manipulate …

SUSAN: Or if you’re listless …

NANCY : Lethargic …

DOROTHY: Or languid …

WENDY: Then Sue and I dump you, and just go for Jake.

SUSAN: ‘Cause he’s amazingly generous, confident …

WENDY: Bold, witty, fun, kind – a really great guy.

SUSAN: But if your love proves true,

WENDY: And if we think you’d do,

SUSAN: We might take both of you …

WENDY: Jake and you too.

HAMILTON (amused): For courts of love, is this form quite traditional?

JAN: Strictly traditional – trial by ordeal.

(HAMILTON turns to NANCY, kisses her lightly, closes his eyes, lies back, briefly just lets his body convey his enjoyment of the attention, then begins.)

HAMILTON: Perched in a window above the school door, on the day summer term began, I first saw Jake. On a black motorbike, in a black jacket, beneath a black helmet, she focused my lens.

(HAMILTON pauses. JAN and ALICE exchange puzzled glances. The other girls fail to catch the pronoun.)

HAMILTON: Following, zooming in close as she stopped, stood, turned, took off her goggles, uncovered her face, I snapped a photograph. Now, when I look at it, I see so much that I didn’t see then.

(HAMILTON pauses again. The girls, confused, stop their attentions to HAMILTON and stare at one another, then at WILL, whose effort to suppress a grin slowly fails.)

HAMILTON (opening his eyes and looking into JAN’s): Courage, the courage to hope against hopelessness, called to me silently, fierce, proud and sad. But I was deaf to it. She was cross-dressing. And I was oblivious. I said: “Nice bike.”

(JAN, overjoyed, grabs HAMILTON’s head and kisses him, open-eyed, as the other girls hug him and one another. As JAN breaks off and nestles back into WILL, HAMILTON’s eyes turn to WENDY and SUSAN. Both are beaming. He gently raises a knee to nudge WENDY up for a kiss.)

 

  
*       *       * 


	14. Scene 11 - Pudding and hard sauce

INT - CHARLIE’S GAS STATION, NEW RAWLEY – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(Snow continues to fall heavily. Still no customers. BELLA, in sweatshirt and overalls, stands in the service bay, tinkering under the hood of one of CHARLIE’s two green 1950-vintage pickup trucks. The other, snow brushed off it, remains outside the service bay, parked near the side hedge – as in every scene of this venue. The outside garage door is closed, the connecting door to the gas station office is open. In the office, BELLA’s parka hangs from a peg. Her laptop and a hardcover book lie on the desk.

SUSAN Krudski, in parka and snowboots, carrying a dish wrapped in a plastic bag, knocks on the window of the cantilevered garage door.)

BELLA (turning around, delighted): Mrs. Krudski! Come on into the office. I’ll be right there.

(SUSAN enters the office, wipes her feet, pushes back her parka hood, sets her dish down on the counter, brushes snow off herself. BELLA downs tools, wipes her hands on a cloth, turns off the service bay lights, enters the office through a connecting door, hugs SUSAN. Disengaging slightly, they look affectionately into each other’s eyes.)

BELLA: It’s good of you to come in this weather.

SUSAN: First snowfall. The fun hasn’t worn off yet.

BELLA: It will.

SUSAN: Maybe not entirely. … You still hopin’ Charlie’ll give you that truck when you turn eighteen?

BELLA: Yep. Everything old becomes hip, eventually.

SUSAN: I wouldn’t count on that, girl.

BELLA: Why not?

SUSAN: That truck and Charlie go way back. Memories … bench seat …

BELLA (blushing slightly): Oh …

SUSAN (smiling): On the other hand, he has two. … (Spotting the book on the desk:) Whatcha readin’?

BELLA: Something Will gave me.

SUSAN: Really? Let’s see. … _Myth and Reality_ … Sounds spellbinding. That’s my boy.

BELLA: I sort of asked for it. My reality increasingly seems … weird.

SUSAN: Did you? … (Pointing to her dish:) Well, I just came by to drop this off.  … (Turning to leave:) Please wish Grace and your dad a happy Thanksgiving for me. Oh, and …

BELLA (stopping SUSAN): No. Speak for yourself, Susan. … (She opens the inside door and shouts upstairs:) Dad, Grace, Mrs. Krudski’s here.

(A patter of feet running down the stairs. Grace enters, throws herself at SUSAN.)

GRACE (hugging SUSAN): Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Krudski! … (Looking greedily at the package:) The usual?

SUSAN: I’m afraid I’m just a one-trick pony.

GRACE (hugging SUSAN again): Yum! Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without your pumpkin bread pudding.

BELLA: With cinnamon-vanilla hard sauce. What am I gonna have to do to get that recipe?

SUSAN: Keep on reading those page-turners?

BELLA: Yeh … Grace, Mrs. Krudski was about to leave without saying hi to dad. Think we should let her?

GRACE: No way. You’ll have a cup of cider with us. (She grabs the pudding with one hand, locks SUSAN’s arm firmly in her other arm, and begins to pull SUSAN toward the stairs.)

SUSAN (laughing): Alright, Grace, go warn Charlie that I’ll be up in a minute. And pour me that cider, will you, please?

(GRACE looks at BELLA, smiles, runs upstairs carrying the pudding.)

SUSAN (pulling a small envelope out of an inside parka pocket): Will asked me to give you this. … (Handing the envelope to BELLA:) Happy Thanksgiving, Bella.

BELLA: Mrs. Krudski … thank you …

(SUSAN goes upstairs. BELLA sits down at the desk, looks at the envelope, her name written on it, slowly opens it, takes out a note bearing a handwritten poem, reads it silently.)

WILL (voice-over):

          Take time, you who have loved what I would be,  
          until you know, whatever course we take,  
          our streams, once merged, will flow to that same sea,  
          finding the hidden outlet of each lake.

          Take time, you who have loved what I have been,  
          the carefree laughter of an upland rill,  
          until in lowland bends you hear again  
          the song of freshets sprung from our birth-hill.

          Take time, till you can love what I now am:  
          meandering, uncertain in my course,  
          pooled smug and stagnant by my stuck-up dam,  
          renewed by flowing backward to our source.

          Yet every snowflake lessens, I give thanks,  
          the time till beauty overflows her banks.

 

*       *       *


	15. Scene 12 - Too-long Longfellow

INT - COMMON ROOM, RAWLEY BOYS’, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(A fire blazes in the hearth. The drapes are drawn. The furniture has been removed or pushed back against the walls, save for a podium before the fireplace, a loveseat on one side of the fireplace, and a green leather lounge chair on the other. FINN sits in the chair. The DEAN and KATE sit in the loveseat, his arm around her shoulders. The only light, other than the fire, is the reading lamp on the podium, at which an upperclass GIRL in tennis whites reads aloud a passage of Longfellow’s “[Courtship of Miles Standish](http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/hwlongfellow/bl-hwl-miless.htm).”

About two hundred students, boys and girls, sit on the common room floor or mill around tables, on which hot cider and baked goods are served, in the adjoining less-darkened room across the corridor from the library. At the back, near the door to the adjoining library, RYDER sits alone. In the middle, BRANDON sits with STEWART, BROOKE and two second-year girls. Near the fire, between FINN’s chair and the podium, SCOUT, WILL, HAMILTON, MARK, SEAN, LENA, JAN, NANCY, ALICE, and LIZ sit close together, JAN with HAMILTON on one side of LENA and SCOUT, NANCY with WILL on the other side, LIZ and SEAN nearest the hearth, holding hands. JAN, ALICE and NANCY snuggle HAMILTON, MARK, and WILL, respectively, often smiling at LENA, not too subtly suggesting that she reciprocate SCOUT’s obvious interest. LENA’s eyes dart nervously between HAMILTON and MARK, then between SCOUT and WILL, then between JAN and ALICE, then between SCOUT and WILL again.

The “summer casual attire” suggestion has been enthusiastically received. Whites, khakis, and pastels, heavily weighted toward pink and lime-green, fill the room. The DEAN wears a rugby shirt and white cotton trousers, KATE a skirted tennis outfit, FINN his navy-blue short-sleeved book-and-crowns crew-coach shirt and khaki slacks. Most boys are either open-shirted (SCOUT, HAMILTON, SEAN, BRANDON) or shirtless (WILL, MARK, RYDER, STEWART), in shorts (WILL, RYDER) or long khakis (SCOUT, BRANDON) or white cottons (MARK, STEWART). HAMILTON and SEAN wear the same jeans they’ve worn all day, WILL his cutoffs, RYDER board shorts, but HAMILTON now wears a short-sleeved white dress shirt rather than his flannel shirt. Many of the girls wear tennis or golf clothes, tunics, or robe-covered beachwear. LENA wears a modest white summer day dress, LIZ a daringly deep-fronted loose black playsuit. Most students are barefoot; some sport designer sandals or flip-flops; some boys wear topsiders, sockless.

The students quietly pay less attention to the poem than to one another. Many couples hold hands, embrace, or caress discreetly. Most unattached students seem focused on prospective partners.

DOROTHY, WENDY and SUSAN emerge from the adjoining room, DOROTHY carrying a paper plate piled high with baked goods, WENDY carrying a napkin with three pieces of fudge.)

GIRL: “Better to hide from the Indian scouts the graves of our people,  
          Lest they should count them and see how many already have perished!”  
          Sadly his face he averted, and strode up and down, and was thoughtful.

(As the GIRL reads, SUSAN and WENDY walk through along the back wall of the common room toward the door connecting with the library, SUSAN pausing to make eye contact with HAMILTON, then walking behind RYDER and briefly fondling his ear lobe with her forefinger and thumb as she follows WENDY into the library. MARK and ALICE watch HAMILTON and JAN watch WENDY and SUSAN.

The GIRL, finishing the passage, rolls her eyes apologetically, leaves the podium, heads for the cider in the next room. MARK looks at FINN, then raises his hand slightly, indicating his willingness to read. FINN nods his approval. MARK gives ALICE a light kiss on the neck, disengages from her, stands, goes to the podium, begins reading.)

MARK: Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, and among them  
           Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for binding:  
           Bariffe’s Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries of Caesar  
           Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of London,  
           And, as if guarded by these, between them was standing the Bible.  
           Musing a moment before them, Miles Standish paused, as if doubtful  
           Which of the three he should choose for his consolation and comfort …

(As MARK reads, DOROTHY joins the group by the fire, offering them the food she has brought. RYDER, after a discreet interval, stands and follows WENDY and SUSAN into the library. HAMILTON and FINN watch him leave.)

 

*       *       *


	16. Scene 13 - In a glass, darkly

INT - LIBRARY, RAWLEY BOYS’, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(RYDER, WENDY and SUSAN stand in the first row of the darkened stacks, near the door to the common room, lightly making out while talking softly. The voices of students taking turns reading the poem carry faintly from the common room. RYDER holds a few pieces of fudge, wrapped in a napkin.)

RYDER (popping a piece of fudge into WENDY’s mouth): So you spent all day, through dinnertime, making calendars with young Fleming? (He helps WENDY melt her fudge.)

SUSAN (relieving RYDER of the napkin-wrapped fudge, and setting it on a bookshelf): Uh-huh. And helping him and Will lug half of them over here.

RYDER (breaking off): The cad made you poor frail creatures do his carting for him?

WENDY (gently but forcefully pushing RYDER against the bookstacks with SUSAN’s help): That we’re frail is a notion of which we could disabuse you.

RYDER (nuzzling WENDY): Mmmm … I recall. My room?

SUSAN (her hands engaging RYDER’s torso): Not this evening, Forrest.

RYDER (loosening both girls’ robe belts): As you wish. … The calendars turned out well?

WENDY (following SUSAN’s lead): Quite nicely. You’ll see when you get yours tomorrow.

RYDER (fondling both girls): I’ll get none – I’ll dine with the Flemings. Pity, I’d like to see one.

WENDY: Mmmm … Sorry, they’re locked up in the storeroom downstairs.

RYDER: Not in the Dean’s office? That’s odd. (He kisses SUSAN.)

WENDY (laughing): Yes. Hamilton’s so funny. He had us take them down there so he could show us what the Dean had originally planned to have us take as dinner gifts tomorrow. Hideously ugly Rawley-logo paperweights. Crates full of them, stored under the stairs. Hamilton set the calendars on top of them as though he were sealing them in their coffins.

SUSAN (breaking off): Actually, they’re not all in the storeroom. We had lots more calendars than we needed. So I put a dozen by at each school so that people could look at them. The ones here at the boys’ school are in the bookcase in the corridor under the main staircase.

RYDER: You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?

SUSAN: More than you can imagine.

(RYDER resumes kissing SUSAN. HAMILTON enters from the corridor end of the aisle.)

HAMILTON (clearing his throat): Excuse me. Ryder, Finn sent me to find you. He’d like you to read some of the poem.

RYDER (not disengaging from WENDY and SUSAN): Well, speak of the devil.

HAMILTON: Hardly. I wouldn’t dream of stealing your role, Ryder.

RYDER: Really? Just how selective is your fondness for role reversals, Fleming?

HAMILTON: More selective than the affections of some young ladies, sadly.

SUSAN: Took you long enough to show up, Hamilton.

WENDY: Not that we weren’t prepared to make Forrest wait longer.

RYDER (softly, looking, with amusement, first at WENDY, then at SUSAN): So that’s your game? Sure, I’ll play. … (More loudly:) Any particular part of the poem that Finn wants me to read, Fleming?

HAMILTON: Any part will do, I think.

WENDY: Then there’s no rush. It’s an interminable screed.

SUSAN: Dull, too. Eager to get back to it?

HAMILTON: No. It’s lame, I admit.

RYDER: Come join us, then.

(WENDY and SUSAN smile at HAMILTON, SUSAN holding out a hand to him.)

HAMILTON: Oh come on. It’s wretched form to make out in the library …

RYDER: Didn’t stop you and Jake last summer.

HAMILTON (taking SUSAN’s hand): Not quite like this. Besides, I have to read later. And Ryder, I don’t like you.

RYDER: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

SUSAN: Ham, can you, like Forrest, read any part you please?

HAMILTON: No, I’ve been asked to read a specific passage.

RYDER (suddenly interested): Really? And when’s your passage?

HAMILTON: Almost at the end.

SUSAN (pulling HAMILTON close): Then you have time. And you can hear the poem from here, can’t you? Every bit as well as the kids around the cider table in the next room. We can talk softly … and seldom … and if we like books more than cider, who’s to fault us, Hamilton?

WENDY: Half the kids in the common room are snogging through this doggerel, Ham. How was it that someone put it at the start of the reading? … (Mimicking the DEAN’s voice:) “It’s not a great poem, but it’s a Thanksgiving classic. And it’s a love poem, or at least it tries to be. Feel free to behave accordingly, within reason.” Recall who that was?

HAMILTON: Uh … my dad. But this is not within reason.

WENDY: Maybe you should consider our reasons.

HAMILTON: Will’s told me your reason. But I am not messing with Ryder. Not now, not ever.

WENDY: Since you feel that way … we’ll forgo that for the pleasure of your company, Hamilton.

RYDER: We will?

SUSAN: We will. But Ham, “not ever”? Could he never be lovable? Never really love?

WENDY: That he couldn’t – think that might be what he feels? And what he wants us to feel? About everybody … starting with him … and ending with ourselves?

HAMILTON (taken aback): So maybe he could. Someday. But not soon.

WENDY: Yes, that would take a miracle. And you don’t believe in them, do you, Ham?

HAMILTON: This is not my task.

WENDY: Whose, then?

SUSAN: Let him be, Wendy. Sorry, Ham. You’ve got other worries, we know. Go back to the common room, please. Tell Finn we’ll have Forrest in there well before the poem ends.

RYDER: Oh, I doubt he’ll do that. … Fleming, doesn’t Krudski usually run Finn’s errands for him? And wasn’t he sitting right next to you and Finn this evening? So how is it that you’re here with us, not him?

HAMILTON: Finn did ask Will to find you, Ryder. But Will seemed to be enjoying the poem. So I offered to go instead.

RYDER: Even William couldn’t enjoy this rubbish, Fleming. You’re here to save these poor sweet creatures from me, aren’t you?

HAMILTON: Stuff it, Ryder. … (Nuzzling SUSAN’s shoulder:) Come back to the common room?

SUSAN: In a while, Ham. And don’t feel hurt. Today was wonderful.

RYDER: Oh my. … Whatever happened to dear Jake, Hammy? Out of sight, out of mind?

WENDY (pinning RYDER against the stacks and pulling his head back by his hair): Mind your manners, Forrest.

SUSAN (scratching the side of one of RYDER’s pectorals with her nails): You really needn’t always play the rotter.

HAMILTON (pulling in behind SUSAN, wrapping an arm around her, pulling SUSAN’s hand off RYDER and kissing it): I’m not leaving you alone with him.

RYDER: Can’t, can you, Fleming? They want to save me from myself. You want to save them from me. So here we all are. But don’t they want to save you from something, too?

WENDY: Ignore it, Ham. He can’t hurt us.

SUSAN: Even if he could, “the trick is not minding.”

(A boy and girl enter from the common room, see the group, grin, excuse themselves, and move to the far end of the library.)

HAMILTON: But sooner or later he’ll find a way to hurt you that you do mind.

RYDER: And then they’ll try to learn not to mind that, Fleming. Meanwhile, they’ll try to find something that I don’t want to hurt, that I want to love. It’s the game.

SUSAN: You play it yourself, don’t you, Hamilton? You just chose someone who was self-destructive, rather than someone who hurts others. But that didn’t stop you from being hurt, did it? Wish somebody had run up and pulled you away from Jake to keep that from happening?

HAMILTON: I chose someone who couldn’t change alone. Not unwilling to change. There are more people like that out there. So why waste your time on him?

SUSAN (pulling HAMILTON in front of her): Hamilton, look at Forrest.

HAMILTON: So he’s gorgeous. So what?

RYDER (wrapping a leg around HAMILTONs’, pulling HAMILTON to him): No more than you, Hammy boy. Still, the most pleasant part of screwing you would be what it would do to your little friend. You remember, the one who “so isn’t worth it”? So glad you had fun today, by the way.

SUSAN (to HAMILTON, a hand grazing his stomach): Look closer, Ham, beneath the surface. He’s devious. Seems indifferent, but he really wants you to hate him. He’s passionate, in his own way. Claims to be “passionately apathetic.” A bit like being passionately compassionate, Hamilton.

RYDER: Ah, but young Krudski says passionate dispassion is an oxymoron. And he’s a scholar, a tutor even. So mustn’t passionate compassion be an oxymoron, too, Fleming?

WENDY (fondling RYDER’s chest): And Ryder’s smart, obviously. Pretends not to study, but does.

RYDER (nuzzling WENDY): Mmmm … Working sets such a bad example – swots should just be ploughed.

SUSAN (to HAMILTON): He’s nasty, but is he selfish?

HAMILTON: No. The bastard paid a hundred bucks to hurt Will and Caroline last summer. And even when he needed to raise money in a hurry, playing poker, he took time to suck in Will, even fronted Will his starting stake – just for the pleasure of fleecing the poorest kid in the school.

SUSAN: His malice is so selfless that it’s oddly attractive.

RYDER: Well, every hook needs a bit of bait, doesn’t it? You know, ladies, Krudski would serve you better for this than Fleming.

SUSAN (nuzzling HAMILTON): Mmmm? Why?

RYDER: Krudski’s deliberately vulnerable. Always gives me a chance to hurt him. Because that’s the only way to let me choose not to.

HAMILTON: Do you ever choose not to?

RYDER: Of course not. It’s part of William’s education.

WENDY: So how would that serve us better?

RYDER: The vulnerability’s hot. There’s a tiny chance I might fall for him. Whereas Fleming here’s always guarded, always lets me know I’m not worth taking any risks.

SUSAN (unfastening the button of HAMILTON’s jeans): Gorgeous, deviously passionate, smart, selfless – a lot like you, Hamilton. And like you, his long suite is empathy.

HAMILTON (gently removing SUSAN’s hand): But he uses that to target people’s emotional weaknesses.

RYDER (sighing): And, sadly, one must keep finding new ones. People grow inured after one targets the same vulnerability repeatedly. Much as targeting your rather ambiguous sexuality just no longer seems to do the job, Fleming. Happily, I’ve found something better.

HAMILTON (turning his head to kiss SUSAN): What’s that, Ryder?

RYDER: That you’re not really quite so loving as you’d like to be, are you?

HAMILTON (breaking off): So? Who is?

RYDER: No one – if you go in for that sort of thing. That’s why people so adore other people they take to be especially loving. Take Wendy, here. … (Nuzzling WENDY:) Her eyes have been on you, even though her hands have been on me, ever since you joined us. People seem to be starting to worship you, Fleming. Think you can inure yourself to disappointing them?

HAMILTON: You really are a bastard.

RYDER (turning to HAMILTON): Yes. And they’re right, you know - you hate me because we’re so alike.

HAMILTON: Not in the way that matters most, Ryder.

RYDER: Really, Fleming? Not at all? Well, time will tell, I suppose. … You do see, I trust, that with dear little Jake, sooner or later, you’ll make a botch of it. The separation, the loneliness, will wear you down. You’ll slip up.

HAMILTON: Don’t hold your breath.

RYDER: Oh, but you already do. For example, the way you talk about Jake with your friends. You never use a gender-inflected pronoun. It’s quite noticeable.

(HAMILTON grabs RYDER’s wrists, pins RYDER to the bookcase.)

RYDER: Trying to turn me into a girl, Fleming? An interesting metamorphosis to undergo, I’m sure. But if I let you do that to me, so many young ladies would be gutted. It just wouldn’t be right.

HAMILTON (pulling RYDER’s arms down behind his head, forcing RYDER’s body to arch out): Some of my abilities are greatly exaggerated.

RYDER (wincing): No doubt. But we’ve been here before, haven’t we? One fine morning a week before summer session ended?

HAMILTON (thrusting his body hard into RYDER’s): Yeh … How does it feel to be the one pressed against the stacks this time?

(SUSAN and WENDY begin softly to urge HAMILTON to stop. He pulls back a bit.)

RYDER (gasping in pain): Delightful, especially the arm socket foreplay. One can only wish Jake were here with us again. …Tell me, was your oh-so-transient break-up on the docks later that week staged just for my benefit?

HAMILTON (hissing venomously into RYDER’s ear): Nothing is just for your benefit, butt-boy. … (Again pulling down on RYDER’s arms and thrusting his hips against RYDER, even more violently:) And if you could prove your suspicions about Jake, you’d already have screwed us, wouldn’t you?

(ALICE and MARK, both a bit disheveled, enter the stack aisle from the corridor side.)

RYDER (now in agony): Yes. And I still owe you for that right cross to my jaw. Time to pay you, isn’t it? (He presses his mouth against HAMILTON’s.)

ALICE: Ryder, don’t be a prat.

(HAMILTON, disgusted, pushes RYDER away, releasing him.)

MARK (glaring at HAMILTON): And you already have one, Fleming. … (To RYDER:) You OK?

RYDER (flexing and rubbing his shoulders): Yeh. Just getting up to a little extracurricular activity. Almost anything beats your Yank poetry. Even finding out how gentle Fleming here can be.

WENDY (to MARK and ALICE): How long have you two been eavesdropping?

MARK: Long enough to keep two couples out of your aisle.

SUSAN (looking at HAMILTON, amused): Oh, so that’s why you didn’t show up here until after Harry had finished reading. Throwing caution to the wind again, Ham?

(MARK shoots a cautionary glance at SUSAN.)

HAMILTON (looking at MARK): Something like that.

WENDY (as the girls make themselves presentable): Thank you, Harry.

MARK: Girls, I’d like a word with Hamilton. Would you take Forrest back to the common room, please? Tell Finn that Ham and I will be out shortly. And sit with us by the fire this time. It’s a dull poem, but we amuse one another.

ALICE (to RYDER, glowering): Shall we?

(ALICE leaves by the corridor, taking RYDER with her, touching MARK’s arm on the way out.)

SUSAN: Sorry, Ham. Thanks for trying.

WENDY: Mark … (She pauses deliberately after the name.) … We’ll see you in the common room.

(WENDY and SUSAN leave by the corridor, lightly kissing both boys as they go.)

MARK (straightening HAMILTON’s hair): Think you won that?

HAMILTON (letting his humiliation show): No.

MARK: Feel good to let yourself be like him? Just as nasty, but way worse at it?

HAMILTON: No.

MARK (straightening HAMILTON’s shirt): He gets to you by threatening Jacqueline. Wait till he can’t do that. Until she’s here, and can help.

HAMILTON (emphatically): I don’t want her anywhere near him.

MARK (after a pause): Alright, enough about him. … (Resting his hands on HAMILTON’s chest:) Sean’s great. Thank you.

HAMILTON: That, at least, seems to have gone well.

MARK: Better than that. Seems to have gone well with the _Rag_ girls, too. … (Fastening the button of HAMILTON’s jeans:) No boxers today, guy?

HAMILTON (chagrinned): Sometimes Thanksgiving comes early.

MARK (amused but concerned): You donated a banner to the girls’ school?

HAMILTON (nodding): Stay with me tonight, please?

MARK: I’m yours, Ham.

HAMILTON (gratefully): I know.

MARK (spotting the napkin holding a last remaining piece of fudge): Hungry?

HAMILTON: Starved. Missed dinner.

(MARK takes the fudge, breaks off a bite and feeds it to HAMILTON.)

MARK (taking HAMILTON’s hand and pulling him to a window seat): So tell me. And make it fast. We’ve got maybe fifteen minutes before you have to read. Ten before Finn and your parents start to get antsy. And we need to feed you.

 

*       *       *


	17. Scene 14 - Motorcycle maintenance

INT - CHARLIE’S GAS STATION, NEW RAWLEY – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(Still snowing, and still no customers. BELLA sits reading at the desk. SUSAN Krudski slowly enters from the stairway to the upstairs apartment, carrying a worn paperback book and her gloves. BELLA folds up WILL’s poem, sticks it into her book, stands. SUSAN smiles, sets the book she’s carrying down on the desk under her gloves, begins to button her coat.)

BELLA: May I walk you home, Mrs. Krudski?

SUSAN: Grace is coming down to do that.

BELLA (pointing to the book under SUSAN’s gloves): From Dad? For Will?

SUSAN: Yes.

BELLA: May I?

SUSAN (picking up her gloves, putting them on): Sure.

BELLA (taking the book): _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_?

SUSAN: It was all the rage when Charlie and I were young. He used to quote it sometimes.

BELLA: He still does. “The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things. … Each machine has its own, unique personality … and it is this personality that is the real object of motorcycle maintenance.”

SUSAN: You’ve read it?

BELLA (nodding): I gave a copy to a friend on her sixteenth birthday. A cyclist who'd spent last summer here in town. She and a guy bonded over her bike … and fell in totally in love, the real thing. But before she could leave safely, her bike had to be completely rebuilt. And so did her personality.

SUSAN: Sounds like quite a story.

BELLA: You’ll hear it, when Will’s free to tell it. Soon, I hope. But why’s Dad giving this to Will? I mean, Dad definitely does not think Will needs a personality rebuild.

SUSAN: Maybe Will thinks he does … or did … or may, someday. Read Charlie’s inscription.

BELLA (opening the book to the frontispiece:) “For Will, with best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving. – ‘Who really can face the future? … And who really can forget the past?’” … You know, as Thanksgiving gifts go, I like puddings better. They need less interpretation.

SUSAN (taking the book from BELLA, putting it into a coat pocket): Do they? Boys are a lot like puddings, girl. We make ‘em to share ‘em. But they don’t keep forever, no matter what they say.

BELLA: I know.

SUSAN: So do as I say, not as I did.

(BELLA hugs SUSAN. Footsteps bounce down the stairs. GRACE enters, parka and gloves on, hood up, booted, all ready to go.)

GRACE (cheerily): You ready, Mrs. Krudski?

SUSAN (disengaging from BELLA, putting up her hood): Thank you, yes. Happy Thanksgiving, Bella.

BELLA: Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Krudski.

(GRACE flashes a brief, pained glance at BELLA, takes SUSAN’s arm in hers, opens the door, leads her outside into the blizzard.)

 

*       *       *


	18. Scene 15 - A bit of blatant foreshadowing

INT - COMMON ROOM, RAWLEY BOYS’, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(More of the students are in couples now, and most of the couples are more closely engaged. Summer casual has become very casual; most articles of clothing that decently can be opened or removed, have been.

In the group by the fire, RYDER, SUSAN and WENDY are now seated with SCOUT, WILL, MARK, SEAN, LENA, JAN, NANCY, ALICE, DOROTHY – JAN and ALICE with MARK, NANCY and DOROTHY with WILL, LENA with SCOUT, LIZ wrapped around SEAN, whose shirt is now off. Ryder, still shirtless, now wears a pair of low-cut blue jeans. LENA continues to be less responsive than SCOUT would wish, having added SUSAN and WENDY to the couples between whose halves her eyes dart nervously.

HAMILTON stands at the podium, reading. RYDER is surprisingly attentive to this passage of the poem. The others, noticing this, also pay less attention to their partners and more to HAMILTON.)

HAMILTON: Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,  
                   Clad in armor of steel, a sombre and sorrowful figure!  
                   Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?  
                   Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?  
                   Is it a phantom of air – a bodiless, spectral illusion?  
                   Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?  
                   Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed …

(As HAMILTON reads, the DEAN and KATE exchange mischievous smiles.)

 

*       *       *


	19. Scene 16 - What here shall miss …

INT - CHARLIE’S GAS STATION, NEW RAWLEY – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(Bella sits at the desk, her laptop on it and open. Over her shoulder, we see she’s reading an online article about Robert Pirsig. From outside, GRACE enters, brushing off the snow, stomping and wiping her boots.)

BELLA: How’d it go?

GRACE (throwing back her hood, sitting down on the chair in front of the desk, taking off her boots): She managed to keep it together. … Maybe we should have let her just drop off the pudding.

BELLA (thoughtfully, shaking her head): No. … We all make so many mistakes. If we don’t salvage what we can from them, what’s left?

GRACE: Dad OK?

BELLA: He’s got his new novel, and his new bottle. Finn knew what he’d need. Let him be.

GRACE: Does it ever work out, for anybody? I mean, outside of fairy tales … and your Jane Austen novels?

BELLA: It must.

GRACE (standing up, putting her boots next to the door): Know anybody like that?

BELLA (after some thought): Mary McGrail?

GRACE (taking off her parka, hanging it on a peg): Yeh, right. Her husband’s a workaholic. He’s never there. So she lives for her kids.

BELLA (standing, going to the 1930’s Westinghouse Standard Coke dispenser in the corner, taking out two glass Coke bottles): At least she’s got kids. And he keeps ‘em clothed and fed. (She opens the Cokes, using the opener on the side of the dispenser.)

GRACE: Maybe that’s all there really is, and we’d be better off without all the fairy tales.

BELLA (handing a Coke to GRACE): Better off without hope?

GRACE (taking it): Better off without unrealistic dreams.

BELLA (smiling, half-sitting on the edge of the desk, pulling GRACE next to her): Grace, everything we are and have were unrealistic dreams once.

GRACE (drinking her Coke): But they hurt.

BELLA (also drinking): That’s how they work. And eventually, the best of them “come true.” They become real, they change our reality, because they’re truer than reality.

GRACE: Ever see that happen?

BELLA: There’s someone I want you to meet, Grace. You have, kinda, but you can't, really, until her dream comes true. But it will, I think. …

GRACE: With “faith, hope and a little bit o’ luck”?

BELLA (smiling): Yeh. The trick, as Will says, is to dream dreams worthy of us. … Come read with me.

(BELLA pulls GRACE to the chair behind the desk, sits in it, types briefly on the laptop.)

GRACE (looking at the screen): That play is _not_ about dreams coming true, big sister.

BELLA: You're sure?

GRACE (releasing BELLA's hand):  _R and J?_   Gimme a break. The only dream that comes true in that is Romeo's dream that he'll die young if he goes to the Capulets' dance. 

BELLA: How about ending the feud?

GRACE (half-sitting on the edge of the desk, facing BELLA): The Friar dreams of doing that.  Romeo and Juliet don't.

BELLA: "Dreamers often lie."

GRACE: Bella, what they accomplish, they don't intend - they don't even care about it. That's part of why the play sucks.

BELLA: Shakespeare cared about it. Scout convinced you of that, didn't he?

GRACE: You mean, when he showed me how to write an essay on it that wouldn't get flunked?

BELLA: Grace, your first essay - about how this play should be called "Romeo and Mercutio," and end when Mercutio's killed, 'cause Romeo and Mercutio love each other way better than Romeo and Juliet do - was brilliant. I'll never forget reading it with Hamilton, right here, on your laptop. A perfect end to a great evening.

GRACE: Yeh, you'd, uh, pretty obviously enjoyed the movie. But Will'd helped me.

BELLA: Just with the writing. Your take on this play blew Will away, too. That's why he told Ham and me to read it. And Hamilton loved it. 

GRACE (smiling): I remember. When he walked me to the bandstand afterward, I thought he just wanted to leave you and Will together for a while. But he kept asking me about how I'd seen what I'd seen.

BELLA: But if you'd turned that essay in, and Mrs. Flanagan hadn't died of a heart attack, you'd have made an enemy of your English teacher.  

GRACE: So Will told me. And Scout was a sweetheart to spend most of the next day showing me how to write an essay that got an "A" from her.

BELLA: He likes you. And he loves history.

GRACE: It shows. His crash course on the wars of religion was horrifying. (She drinks some Coke.)

BELLA: So did you really buy Scout's take on this play, or did you just use it?

GRACE: I buy that the feud's a metaphor for the wars between Protestants and Catholics.  I don't buy that it's a great play. 

BELLA: Even though it showed how to end those wars?  

GRACE: By saying we should "hang up philosophy" and let "faith return again to earth … from heaven"?

BELLA: By making religion more about love in this life and less about how we get an afterlife - which is what those wars were fought about.

GRACE: I buy that's that's why the play uses religious imagery to describe sex, like in the kiss sonnet.

BELLA: So you buy that Shakespeare, in writing this play, had a "worthy dream."

GRACE: He did. But Romeo and Juliet don't.

BELLA: "But He, that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail"?

GRACE: Deep line, but it's the only one in the play. … Look, Romeo falls for Juliet out of sheer lust - at first sight, just for her body, without knowing anything about her except how she looks. He thinks she's the hottest thing he's even seen.

BELLA (drinking): At age thirteen.

GRACE: Yeh - that's bizarre. But he doesn't know she's a Capulet, and he's horrified when he learns that she is, so he's not trying for a Montague-Capulet marriage that could end the feud.

BELLA: Then why has he been chasing another Capulet girl, Rosaline, and kept on chasing her even though she's not interested?

GRACE: I don't know. It makes no sense. But a lot of things about this play make no sense. Especially that it's not called "Romeo and Mercutio." Romeo throws away his future with Juliet in order to try to avenge Mercutio on Tybalt. And Mercutio dies trying to save Romeo's life, to keep him from having to fight Tybalt, who's a way better swordsman than Romeo, even though Romeo gets lucky and kills him.

BELLA: "I am fortune's fool."

GRACE: And Mercutio, even though he obviously enjoys sex-play with Romeo, doesn't try to keep Romeo for himself. He helps Benvolio get Romeo to go to the dance and meet girls who, unlike Rosaline, aren't total prudes. Mercutio loves Romeo so well that Romeo can't help avenging him. That's a way more inspiring love story than Romeo and Juliet.

BELLA: Only because you've seen things about Mercutio that other people miss.

GRACE: Bella ...

BELLA: You have!  Like that Mercutio's been holding Romeo together sexually and emotionally while he courted Rosaline - without taking anything physical in return.  And that that's what Romeo thanks Mercutio for having done the next morning, when he says, "Then is my pump well flowered," and says that Mercutio's sexual favors have been "solely singular for the singleness."

GRACE: How can people _not_ see that?  

BELLA: Well, they haven't. 

GRACE: I know, Will told me. But ...

BELLA: And nobody'd seen how Mercutio masks his true motives from Romeo after he learns from Benvolio that Tybalt has sent a written duel-challenge to Romeo at his house. How he and Benvolio never tell Romeo about that challenge, and go to Romeo's house to intercept it so that Romeo will never find out about it. How Mercutio lets Romeo think he's picking a fight with Tybalt just because he's hot-headed.

GRACE: So that Romeo won't feel guilty, no matter how that turns out. And that's why Mercutio dies cracking jokes, and cursing the feud, not Romeo's getting in his way. Even as he dies, he's still trying to keep Romeo from fighting Tybalt, trying to save Romeo's life. That's true love, Bella.

BELLA: It is.

GRACE: So for the play to keep on going for three more acts, focused on a story that's just lust, makes no sense. 

BELLA: Unless Mercutio dies to end the feud. 

GRACE: He never talks about that.

BELLA:  O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:  
            To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

GRACE:  Shakespeare?

BELLA: One of his sonnets - maybe about how to read his plays. Like the way you read Mercutio's Queen Mab speech. What changes Romeo's mind about going to the dance can't be the words of that speech.  So it must be ... ? 

GRACE: The way Mercutio delivers it - touching all the parts of Romeo's body that are mentioned in that speech. But that doesn't solve the problem.

BELLA: You're sure?

GRACE: Mercutio's getting Romeo horned up may make him wanna go to the dance to meet girls. And making a guy horny enough might make him ignore a dream of death. But it doesn't lead him to say something like, "But He, that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail!" That's ...

BELLA: Faith - in love.

GRACE: But the first thing that Romeo does after mouthing that line is to fall for a thirteen-year-old girl at first sight, just for her body. If that's the kind of love Shakespeare wants us to have faith in … (Shaking her head:) The play sucks, Bella. But nobody wants to admit that, 'cause we've all been trained to worship Shakespeare.

BELLA: Well … Will, Scout, Ham, Jake, Mark, Anne and I all kinda do worship him. So what you'd pointed out challenged our faith. It got us all re-reading this play, and thinking and talking about it, for weeks.

GRACE (flattered): Really?

BELLA: Yes, not-so-little sister. We all bought your argument about how well Mercutio loves Romeo - all of it. But we couldn't believe that Shakespeare would write a "Romeo and Juliet" in which Mercutio loves Romeo better than Romeo and Juliet love each other. So we figured we had to be missing something about how Romeo and Juliet love each other.

GRACE: Like what?

BELLA: Well, Jake - whose mom's a Shakespearean actress - suggested that maybe what we're missing is something that the original audience could see in the theater, but that we can't easily see just reading the play-script.

GRACE: Find anything like that?

BELLA: A few weeks later, in mid-October, Hamilton saw what we've all been missing.

GRACE: Hamilton? Not Will?

BELLA: Ham was inspired. And he phoned me this evening to ask me to share it with you - before this weekend … if you'll agree to keep it secret.

GRACE (astonished): Sure … but why?

BELLA: Why the secrecy? I'll tell you after you've heard it.

GRACE: No. I mean ... why tell me at all?

BELLA: Partly because Hamilton wouldn't have seen it without you, and wants to share it with you.  And partly, he said, to remind you of something.

GRACE: What?

BELLA: Of what he told you when you told him how you'd seen how well Mercutio loves Romeo. ... But he didn't tell me what that was.

GRACE (smiling): Maybe I will - after I've heard what he's seen. … So spill it.

BELLA: I've been trying to. Come read the play with me.

GRACE: The whole thing?

BELLA: Have other plans for the evening?

GRACE: No, but …

BELLA: It's the only way to do it right, girl. 'Cause what we've all been missing changes the whole play.

GRACE: Really?

BELLA: Totally. And for the better ... way better, Grace.

GRACE: How?

BELLA: For example, Romeo's love for Juliet is what compels him to try to avenge Mercutio by killing Tybalt. If Romeo didn't do that, he wouldn't truly love Juliet.

GRACE: But Romeo doesn't truly love Juliet.

BELLA: He does. Romeo doesn't fall in love with Juliet just for her body. When he first sees her at the dance, he's already in love with her. And she's already in love with him. Because they share a dream - one that Mercutio and Benvolio share too. A dream that Mercutio, during his Queen Mab speech, promises Romeo that Mercutio won't let him betray.

GRACE: What dream?

BELLA: The dream of ending the feud by having the Montague heir marry a Capulet girl. 

GRACE: You're kidding.

BELLA: I'm not. The love of Romeo and Juliet is true love, not just lust. It's born of compassion - for Verona, for everybody.

GRACE: Then why don't they ever talk about ending the feud by their marriage? Why does only Friar Lawrence do that?

BELLA: To show that true love "speaks like silence," by deeds, not words. It's what Romeo and Juliet do, not what they say, that shows that they want to end the feud, and that their spoken passion for each other serves their unspoken compassion for Verona.  Serves it and masks it.

GRACE (after a pause): So the trick is to see through the mask of wordy passion to the wordless compassion?

BELLA: Yes, and not just in this play.

GRACE: But how can you be so sure that Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Benvolio really dream of ending the feud if they never talk about it?

BELLA: Because nothing else can explain what they've done as of the Queen Mab speech. The purpose of that endless speech, during which nothing happens except that Mercutio fondles Romeo and talks smut to him ...

GRACE: The Queen Mab speech is smut?  Not nonsense?

BELLA: Wicked smut. But its purpose is to give the audience a chance to think and figure out what's happening.

GRACE: You know how weird all that sounds? 

BELLA (nodding): And I know that Hamilton Fleming is inviting you into a true love story. 

GRACE (softly): I'm already in one. … (Seating herself on BELLA's lap) I've been surrounded by one since August. … Bella, I saw how well Mercutio loves Romeo because the people around me - you, Will, Sean, Scout, Hamilton - had suddenly started loving one another and me that well. At the bandstand that night, after he and you came back from the drive-in, I told Hamilton that … and I thanked him.

BELLA: You know?

GRACE: What's inspired all of you - and Mark and Anne? Not for sure. But it's obviously Jake and Hamilton. It shows all the time, in all sorts of ways.

BELLA: Like?

GRACE: Like Will's helping me with my homework and sending you off to the drive-in to take care of Hamilton the one weekend this semester when he couldn't be at Grottlesex.

BELLA: You've never asked about it.

GRACE (smiling): Not with words. … But if Hamilton's asked you to tell me, before this weekend, what he's seen that turns this frog of a play into a handsome prince … then I'm guessing I'm about to find out.

BELLA: Smart girl.

GRACE: Hamilton wants me to hear one true love story to prep me for another one?

BELLA: 'Cause they're sorta the same story.

GRACE (kissing BELLA's forehead): You'll make a great philosopher's girlfriend. … (Putting an arm around BELLA, nestling into her:) Read me a love story, big sister.

BELLA (initially pretending to read, then turning to look into GRACE’s eyes – she knows it cold):

             "Two households, both alike in dignity,  
             In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,  
             From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,  
             Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."

GRACE (turning her head to read:)

             “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes …”

(Pan out from outside the gas station, as the falling snow gradually obscures the two girls.)

GRACE: “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life,  
             Whose misadventured piteous overthrows  
             Do with their death bury their parents’ strife …”

 

*       *       *


	20. Scene 17 - The Compleat Angler

EXT – RAWLEY BOYS’ BOATHOUSE. DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT).

 

(The snow, now two feet deep, still falls heavily. The edges of the lake have frozen over. The docks and the paths around the boathouse have recently been shoveled.

The GROUNDSKEEPER sits on a bench on the covered boathouse porch, clad in his distinctive parka, hunting cap and scarf, drinking out of a pocket flask and watching, on an Internet-receptive mobile phone, the [first scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_v-p6ANQw4) of _Skins_ series 2, episode 6 - Effy reading Tony the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. A long-handled fishing net and flashlight lie on the bench next to him. The three golden retrievers lie at his feet, nuzzling one another quietly.

The GROUNDSKEEPER, hearing the footsteps of the camera approach, turns toward it.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: Another refugee from Longfellow? … (Closing and pocketing his phone:) Dreadful, ain’t it? Endless blather about two guys so in love with the same girl, and with each other, that each is willin’ to give her up for the other. Why they keep writin’ about that, and draggin’ it out so long when they do, beats me. … (He takes a swig, pockets his flask, stands. Grabbing the net and flashlight:) So let’s go fishin’.

(The camera turns toward the boathouse door fronting on the lake.)

GROUNDSKEEPER (softly, joining the camera at the door): No, don’t go inside. It’s … occupied. … (He puts a hand to his ear. From inside the boathouse comes a girl’s giggle. Winking:) … We don’t know that, of course. … And we don’t want a boat. We’ll use the dock.

(The GROUNDSKEEPER walks to and down the stairs leading down to the dock, the camera following, talking back over his shoulder to it. The dogs stay on the boathouse porch.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: Best time o’ year to catch fish, this. They hardly move. Thoreau knew that. You know that line of his that Krudksi keeps spoutin’, “Heaven’s under our feet as well as over our heads”? It’s about how fish don’t move when the water’s cold.

(The camera pans out slightly.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: Yep. Thoreau’d go out to his pond, winter mornings, to fetch water, break the ice, and see ‘em all down there, not movin’. Wrote that it reminded him o’ heaven. Our cold fish heaven, where nothin’ moves, nothin’ changes, nothin’ grows – ‘cause if it’s perfect, it can’t change, see? … Thoreau, he had a sense o’ humor. Krudski, well, he’s still learnin’.

(Halfway out the length of the dock, the GROUNDSKEEPER stops.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: Right here’ll do. Just past where the ice stops. It’ll all be frozen over by morning. But right now it’s just … (Grinning wickedly:) Perfect, heavenly. … They move slow, slower than the net, but they come to the light. Water’s only three feet deep here, ya can net ‘em all, even the bottom feeders.

(The camera again pans out.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: What? … Of course I know it’s illegal. But the snow’s thick, nobody’ll see us. … (Turning on the flashlight:) You shine the light down, I’ll net ‘em.

(The GROUNDSKEEPER holds the flashlight toward the camera. The camera jiggles a bit. The flashlight disappears, but its light shines down into the water, on which the camera now focuses.)

GROUNDSKEEPER (lowering the net into the water, speaking quietly, so as not to scare off the fish): There’s a reason for it. They need culling. It’s like weedin’ the lawns. The ones that talk sense, ya throw back and let breed. The ones that talk nonsense, they make good eatin’, and the missus thanks me.

(The camera turns up toward the GROUNDSKEEPER’s face.)

GROUNDSKEEPER: What? … Of course they talk. Ya just have to know how to listen. And not to run messages between the fish and the missus, like that fool in the fairy tale does. No good can come o’ that. A woman wants to talk to the fish, let ‘er speak for herself. Look, there’s one!

(The GROUNDSKEEPER swishes the net, pulls it up, a large fish inside.)

GROUNDSKEEPER (closing the top of the net with a gloved hand, pulling it in close): Carp. Nice big one, too. Let’s hear what he says. … (He lifts one earflap of his cap. Holding the netted fish up, seeming to listen to it:) “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” That can’t be right, can it? Truth can’t be beauty if it’s virtue. So he’s Thanksgiving dinner.

(The camera pans onto the GROUNDSKEEPER’s face, tilts slightly.)

GROUNDSKEEPER (shrugging): Supermarket ran out of turkeys. Let’s douse that light. …

 

*       *       *


	21. Scene 18 - Old and yet ever new

INT - COMMON ROOM, RAWLEY BOYS’, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(RYDER now reads at the podium. HAMILTON is again seated by the fire with JAN and the others.)

RYDER (with sarcastic melodrama too subtle to be reproachable):

           Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,  
           Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers.  
           So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.

FINN (standing): Thank you, Ryder.

(RYDER bows, smiles menacingly at HAMILTON, walks to stand by the door to the main corridor. SUSAN and WENDY, seated together by the fire, shrug sadly at one another.)

FINN: And thanks to everyone who read this evening. That was a long poem. So shall we say that it practices what it preaches – that it speaks for itself, and needs no interpretation?

(Applause and cheers from the students, who start to re-dress a bit and rise. Some of them turn up the lights. RYDER exits to the corridor.)

DEAN (standing): Thank you, everyone, for your work today. The chapel’s closed tomorrow, but town church service schedules, for those so inclined, are posted on the LAN and in the entryways to both schools. The names and addresses of your Thanksgiving dinner hosts, and courtesy gifts for them, will be distributed in the common rooms from noon until two P.M. Have a joyous and thankful feast.

(As the room starts to empty, FINN and some upperclassmen begin cleaning up and restoring it to its usual order. The DEAN and KATE walk over to HAMILTON, still near SCOUT, WILL, MARK, SEAN, LENA, JAN, NANCY, ALICE, DOROTHY, SUSAN, WENDY and LIZ, who is playfully impeding SEAN’s efforts to put his shirt back on.)

DEAN: Excuse me, everyone. Jan, Nancy, special thanks to you and all the _Rag_ staff who worked on the calendars. They’re lovely.

JAN: They are, sir – they’re your son. … (Putting an arm around HAMILTON:) “Take him and cut him out in little stars.” That’s all we’ve done.

ALICE (pulling in on HAMILTON’s other side): Happy Thanksgiving, Dean Fleming.

DEAN: Thank you. … Mr. McGrail, a pleasure to see you again. Kate – Sean McGrail, a freshman at Edmund, son of Mary McGrail, the PTA president. Sean – Kate Fleming, our art teacher and my wife.

SEAN: Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Fleming.

KATE: Likewise, Sean. … (She shoots LIZ a congratulatory glance.) … Please tell your mother how much we all appreciate what she and the other parents at your school have done for us.

SEAN: I will, ma’am.

DEAN: Sean, your mother phoned this afternoon. I believe you know why. It was my pleasure to grant her request.

SEAN (grinning): Thank you, sir. Very much. I should get going. … (To LIZ:) Come with me as far as the girl’s school?

LIZ: Wait a minute. … (She disengages from SEAN, grabs HAMILTON's head, kisses him. Breaking off:) Thank you. … (Turning to MARK, grazing his abdomen with the back of a finger:) You too, incest-bait. … Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. (She exits to the corridor, pulling an amused SEAN with her.)

(The students, suppressing laughs, look at MARK; he stares them down. WENDY and SUSAN each wrap an arm around MARK.  JAN and ALICE hug HAMILTON more tightly. KATE looks questioningly at the DEAN.)

DEAN (to KATE): I’ll tell you later.

(Two boys in flannels, sweaters, jeans and open parkas – TOM Phillips and MATT Townsend – approach from the adjoining room with the cider and food tables, carrying thermos bottles and still swallowing food they’ve been wolfing down.)

TOM: Happy Thanksgiving, Dean, Mrs. Fleming. I’m back.

NANCY (her jaw dropping): Tom?

DOROTHY (even more surprised): Matt?

TOM (to the DEAN): Dean Fleming, Matt Townsend, from …

DEAN (shaking MATT’s hand): Choate, I recall. Good to see you again, Matt.

MATT: Good to be here, Dean, Mrs. Fleming.

TOM: Nance, Dot – Matt and I are spending Thanksgiving with my folks in Weston.  Took the train there Monday evening. Join us, please?

NANCY: How?

TOM (pointing to a window overlooking the driveway): Will, pull back that drape, please?

WILL (pulling back the drape): A snow plow?

SCOUT: No. … You took a plow out of service during this blizzard?

TOM (amused, to MATT): Our voice of civic duty speaks. Matt Townsend, Scout Calhoun, the Connecticut Senator’s son. And Hamilton Fleming, our Dean’s son. Both first-years here, and rowers, like Will. And Harry Johnson, who coxes their boat.

(MATT shakes hands with SCOUT, HAMILTON and MARK while TOM continues.)

TOM: That plow, Scout, is just my mom’s four-wheel drive Land Rover with a blade attached. We’ve got a longish driveway at home. … (To NANCY:) Putting on snow tires, chains, and that blade took a while. And my dad wouldn’t let us take it out till we’d learned how to use it clearing our driveway, the neighbors’ driveways, and the neighborhood streets. And it’s been slow going.

MATT: And it’ll take a while to get back.

TOM: So Nance, Dot, we’d like to leave as soon as you can get ready. We've got sleeping bags, so we can take turns napping. And we have train reservations for four to come back here Saturday. … Dean Fleming, may we please fill our thermoses with school coffee? And may Matt stay here with me Saturday night?

DEAN: Of course, Tom. Glad you’ve been able to pull this off.

NANCY: You told the Dean?

TOM: Well yeh. I had to cut a day of school and take an exam early to do this.

NANCY (picking up a sofa cushion): But you didn’t tell me. Or Dorothy. … (Beating TOM with the cushion:) Jerk! You just left. Without a word. Like you didn’t care at all. … (Swatting MATT:) You too, idiot. You broke our hearts.

MATT (grinning): Surprised?

NANCY: Aargghh …

TOM (tossing the cushion back onto the sofa and taking NANCY in his arms): Nancy Hofstadter, if ever I leave you, it will not be without a word. A very grateful word. (He kisses her.)

MATT (taking DOROTHY’s hands in his): And I’m not dying to see Kansas. I just want to meet your aunt and uncle, and tell them I love their niece. But I can do that anywhere. Maybe Bryn Mawr, at Christmas?

(DOROTHY nods, wraps her arms around MATT and burrows into his neck. WILL and HAMILTON exchange a pleased but uneasy glance. JAN, ALICE, WENDY and SUSAN exchange smiles.)

DEAN (putting an arm around KATE): Well, goodnight, everyone. Kate and I are going home.

KATE: Alice, Wendy, Lena – Steven, Hamilton and I will see you tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Come with us, Hamilton?

HAMILTON: Uh … sure. Just let me fetch my clothes from Will’s closet.

NANCY: Hamilton, wait, please. Tom, Matt, go fill your thermoses and wait for us at the plow.

DOROTHY (to MATT): Go. Hop to it. Now.

MATT: Alright, we can take a hint. Jan, Alice, Susan, Wendy, Will – see you Saturday. Scout, Hamilton, Mark, nice to meet you.

SCOUT: Our pleasure, Matt.

(TOM and MATT exit to the adjoining room where food and drink are available.)

NANCY: Will, Ham - please try to find a few minutes this weekend to talk with Matt and Tom and Dorothy and me, OK? Maybe with Jake?

KATE (raising an eyebrow): Jake’s coming here?

HAMILTON: Sunday, Mom. Jake and I’d like to talk with you and Dad. Are you free after chapel?

DEAN: For Mr. Pratt, we will be. Glad he still knows where Rawley is.

KATE: Invite him to brunch with us, please, Hamilton.

HAMILTON: Thanks, Mom. … And Nancy, yes, definitely. Right, Will?

WILL: I’ll be there.

HAMILTON: And Lena – Jake and I would appreciate a chance to talk with you Sunday afternoon.

MARK: So would I.

LENA: Guys, that’s not necessary.

HAMILTON: It is, Lena. Please.

MARK: Yeh, it really is.

LENA (surprised, shrugging): OK, then, sure.

JAN (putting an arm around an astonished LENA): Hamilton, we’ll walk Lena home.

ALICE: Whatever we can do to help … just let us know, Ham.

HAMILTON: Thanks, girls. For everything.

SUSAN: Our pleasure.

(JAN, ALICE, WENDY, SUSAN, DOROTHY, and NANCY give WILL and HAMILTON light, affectionate kisses, ALICE also giving one to MARK. The DEAN and KATE exchange pleasantly bemused glances.)

NANCY ( _sotto voce_ in HAMILTON’s ear as she kisses him): It’ll be OK.

HAMILTON (equally softly): Tell Dot I’m happy for you both.

JAN: Come on, girls. Off to Finn’s suite for our woolies. Happy Thanksgiving, guys, Mrs. Fleming.

(JAN, NANCY, ALICE, DOROTHY, WENDY, SUSAN and LENA exit to the corridor to a chorus of male “see ya”s and “Happy Thanksgiving”s.)

KATE (to the DEAN): Steven, you rate "guy" status now.

DEAN: My dignity will survive the blow. Hamilton, your mother and I will change in my office, and wait for you there.

HAMILTON (to SCOUT): I’ll meet you guys here after breakfast for shoveling, OK?

SCOUT: Why don’t you stay with Will and me tonight? Let your parents sleep in, take breakfast at the dining hall with us.

WILL (temptingly): They’ll be serving pancakes.

MARK: And we’ll all shovel out Dr. Hotchkiss after the rest.

HAMILTON: Mom, Dad, would that be OK?

DEAN (after getting a smile from KATE): Fine. Just tell Finn.

KATE (kissing each boy on the cheek, starting with her son): Hamilton, please come home after shoveling tomorrow morning to help with Thanksgiving dinner. … Scout, Will, thank you. Steven and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. … And yours, Mark, with Dr. Hotchkiss tomorrow. You’ll be with us Sunday night, I hope?

MARK (looking at the DEAN): Uh …

DEAN: Always a pleasure, Mark. Scout, Will, you too. We don’t see enough of you.

MARK: Sure then. Thanks.

DEAN: Outstanding. Well, good night, gentlemen. Happy Thanksgiving!

SCOUT: Happy Thanksgiving, Dean, Mrs. Fleming.

(The DEAN and KATE and exit to the corridor. SCOUT, WILL, HAMILTON and MARK gaze after them.)

MARK (to HAMILTON): What was that?

HAMILTON: That was weird.

SCOUT: Ham, they’ve always been like that.

HAMILTON (to SCOUT): No, they haven’t. But thanks for the cover story. I wasn’t looking forward to trudging home, and then back here again after they’re asleep.

MARK: Calhoun, you’re the perfect gentleman.

SCOUT (shrugging): All I did was ask your guy to sleep with me, Johnson.

MARK: Impeccable taste. That’s why you’re the perfect gentleman.

WILL (rolling his eyes): Come on, let’s help Finn and the guys clean up.

 

 *       *       *


	22. Scene 19 - Feng Shui

INT - SCOUT’S & WILL’S DORM ROOM, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(The door unlocks and opens, revealing SCOUT, keys in hand, HAMILTON and MARK behind him, WILL behind them, in the corridor. They’re still dressed as they were at the poetry reading – all barefoot, SCOUT in an open light-blue short-sleeve dress shirt and long khakis, WILL in cut-offs, HAMILTON in his brushed denim jeans and open white dress shirt, MARK in long white cotton slacks.)

HAMILTON (removing his shirt and turning to hand it to WILL as the door opens): Thanks for the shirt, Will. Mark, I’ll just grab my stuff. … (Turning forward to face SCOUT:) And Scout, before Mark and I leave … Whoa! …

(WILL nudges a shocked HAMILTON and MARK inside and shuts the door behind them. The room, dimly lit by a screened electric space heater in the blocked-up fireplace and a lava lamp [seen in the unaired pilot of the original drama] on the mantel, is much changed. The frames, headboards and footboards of both beds, disassembled, lean against the wall near the window, where the head of Will’s bed had been. Their two mattresses lie pushed together in front of the fireplace, two unzipped sleeping bags spread out over them, four bed-pillows atop the end nearer the hearth, two neatly folded hand-towels stacked nearby. The club chair is now near the door, where SCOUT’s bed was. A bottle of Rémy Martin, a bottle of mineral water, four snifters, four mugs and a CD player remote control sit on Scout’s desk.)

MARK: Totally Feng Shui! Looks like you and I aren’t the only ones who skipped out on some Longfellow, Ham.

HAMILTON: Yeh … exceeds expectations. … (To SCOUT:) What is this, guys?

SCOUT (walking to his desk): Our invitation. It’s not a cover story. Mark, you’re included. Stay here tonight, please. Will and I will go down to the common room for a while, play chess, maybe shoot some pool. When you and Ham are ready for us to come back, phone me, and we’ll all talk and fall asleep together. Sound good?

MARK: Very. Thanks, guys, that’s really kind. Almost too kind.

SCOUT: Nonsense. Don’t mention it. Besides, you and Ham’ll repay Will and me just by chaperoning us when we get back. We haven’t been close all this term. We don’t trust ourselves to do that alone.

HAMILTON (still by the door): Scout, you and I need to talk.

SCOUT: About your leaving?

HAMILTON: That and more.

SCOUT: Ham, it’s Thanksgiving, and we’ve all got a lot to celebrate. Jacqueline’s coming back, and Anne with her. That’ll help Bella. And you’ll solve Lena’s problem. Besides, you and Will should be together tonight. I’ve heard only the gist of what you guys did today, but I’ve heard enough to know that.

WILL (joining SCOUT, draping the white short-sleeve shirt over the back of SCOUT’s desk chair): Ham, Jacqueline asked me to stay with you tonight. And I promised her I would.

HAMILTON: Will, she didn’t mean all night. Mark’s my guy, you’re Scout’s guy. She knows that.

WILL: Shall we phone Jacqueline and ask?

HAMILTON: No.

WILL: Uh - huh. So you’re staying.

SCOUT: And because we are your guys, Mark and I will stay with you. Right, Mark?

MARK (half sitting on the arm of the club chair): For sure. This is great. I’m just sorry that you and Will have to leave for a while because of me. But it’s been three days, and cuddling with the three of you would get messy fast.

WILL: Mark, it really is our pleasure. And you’re not the only one here who may need some attention before he can just be affectionate. I think you’ll find Ham does, too. …

MARK (looking at HAMILTON): But Ham, uh … donated his boxers to the _Rag_ girls.

WILL: That was at the beginning, when he was telling them the story.

SCOUT (amused): How far into it?

WILL: Not far. The rooftop kiss.

SCOUT: They went right at him, huh?

WILL: No, it was totally not the girls’ fault. Ham’s jeans were on, and the girls were just being affectionate and doing a little light teasing. But Ham didn’t tell them, until too late, that he’d gone without since Sunday.

SCOUT: Oh god …

WILL: I was as surprised as they were. But that’s why you and Ham and wait three days, isn’t it, Mark? To minimize the maleness of it all? To make it as much as possible like foreplay with a girl? The fine art of homophobic homoeroticism?

MARK (exchanging a grimace with HAMILTON): Krudski, ease up on the oxymorons. We told you yesterday that we wait so that we can do it lightly when we’re not with our girls.

WILL: What that meant dawned on me while I was washing Ham’s jeans. His boxers the girls tacked to the mantle, of course. But for the rest of the story, despite the temptation, and their being more than a little worked up, they made sure that didn’t happen again. Apart from letting me try to be helpful …

SCOUT: I’m sure you were. … Ham, why didn’t you tell them?

HAMILTON: I needed to let them get close, to feel part of the story that Jake and I need them to tell for us. And it gave Will and me an excuse to reciprocate. Jake and I wanted that.

SCOUT: Jake and you?

HAMILTON: She suggested it, by phone. I decided she was right.

SCOUT: You’re kidding.

HAMILTON: Dot and Nancy were hurting. Jan and Alice had been incredibly kind to me last year. And Wendy and Susan did something so beautiful for Jake and me today that I couldn’t not make love to them. Just a little, not the real thing, of course. But I couldn’t have done less. … Will hasn’t told you?

WILL: I’d like Scout to hear it from you, Ham … later tonight.

MARK: I haven’t heard it yet either. Just “I’ll tell you in bed.”

WILL: It’s that good, Mark. … But Ham’s reciprocation – besides being incredibly tender, and with all the girls who had guys thinking about their guys – was totally one-sided. Entirely for the girls, physically.

SCOUT (rolling his eyes at HAMILTON): To salvage your reputation?

HAMILTON: To make a point – that none of the girls Will and I were with today is the one I’m in love with. That’s where I drew the line.

MARK (awed):  So you’re hurting as bad as I am.

HAMILTON: ‘Fraid so, guy. … (To SCOUT:) And so is Will. That’s part of what I’ve wanted to talk to you about.

SCOUT (to WILL): Surely not. That’s what you’ve got Alice and Jan for, isn’t it?

WILL: This afternoon wasn’t about me, Scout. It was about Jacqueline. So I followed Ham’s lead.

SCOUT (exasperated): You might have mentioned that to me when we set this up.

WILL: It’s not a problem. I’ll stop off in the showers on the way to the common room. Just let me change into something less summery first. (He starts toward the walk-in closet.)

SCOUT (briefly grabbing WILL’s wrist): Wait.

(SCOUT, HAMILTON and MARK exchange eye-rolls, then glare at WILL.)

HAMILTON: That’s cold, Will.

WILL: It’s no big deal.

HAMILTON: It is for me. You loved Jake and me brilliantly today. The problem you plan to solve in the showers is one you got by doing that. So it’s mine to solve, and I have a better solution in mind.

WILL: Ham, there is no better solution. You and I want our first time to be with Bella and Jacqueline. I don’t want to meet Anne having just messed with Mark. Besides, Scout’s my guy, and he and I … well, we’re waiting. But we do want you and Mark with us tonight. And I gave Jacqueline my word.

SCOUT: Will, you don’t treat someone who cares for you this way. You’re being so kind that it’s cruel. Ham can’t accept it. Neither can Mark or I.

WILL: Scout, I know it’s bad form. But the available alternatives are all worse.

SCOUT: One isn’t. Mark, do you and Ham need privacy from Will and me?

MARK: Not at all, we’d welcome your company. But we we’d also like to keep you electable.

SCOUT: I will be. … (Taking WILL’s hand:) Will, you and I aren’t going to the common room. I’ve just been given my first good excuse to do something I’ve wanted to do all this term.

WILL (slightly panicked): No, Scout. We agreed – that’s only for emotional emergencies. If we start doing that for anything less, here at school, in this room …

SCOUT: We agreed not to do it here when we’re alone. Tonight we’re not.

WILL: I’m not letting you throw it all away for me. “From those to whom much is given, much is asked,” Scout. You owe, and I intend to help you pay – not to keep you from paying.

HAMILTON: I felt the same way three summers back, Will. I still do. … Scout – Jake and I won’t be your excuse to do this. Pleasant as it would be, Mark and I won’t stay here for it.

SCOUT: Will, I won’t throw it all away. Lena’s quite able to keep me from losing it with you. I’ve wanted her ever since I heard what she did for Ham and Jake. And they’ll free her up by telling her the truth this weekend.

WILL: All the more reason you and I shouldn’t give in tonight, Scout. The last thing Lena needs is for her next guy to have a guy on the side. Didn’t you see how she looked at you and me, and at Ham and Mark, this evening?

SCOUT: We all did, but the truth will get her over that. It’ll make her herself again – the same girl who asked Ham to the cotillion despite thinking he was attracted to another guy. You and I will keep what we’ve got in its place, and use it to support our girls. Bella sees that, so will Lena.

WILL: Not good enough, Scout. Neither of us really needs to do this.

SCOUT: I do, Will. I need you to feel loved when you do something kind and bold for a girl we all care for.

WILL: Scout, I will feel loved. Just hold me. Anything more’s too risky.

SCOUT: No, it’s not. I’ll do it the way Ham and I did it Election Night – if you can deal with “homophobic homoeroticism.”

WILL (slowly, after a pause): You’re ready to help me think about Bella?

SCOUT: Yes.

(WILL gazes into SCOUT’s eyes. HAMILTON and MARK exchange surprised but appreciative half-smiles.)

MARK (to HAMILTON): That’s a game-changer.

HAMILTON: Yeh. Mark and I will stay for that, Scout. Better even than what I had in mind.

WILL: Thanks, guys. … (To SCOUT, his free hand brushing SCOUT’s arm:) And you’ll let me help you think about Lena?

SCOUT (nodding, releasing WILL’s hand): Just save me for last. It’ll be easier then.

WLL: Great. Throw caution to the wind for us, please, Ham? (He makes a turning gesture with a hand.)

(HAMILTON, smiling wryly, bolts the door, then walks to WILL, turns WILL to face SCOUT, pulls in behind WILL. WILL reaches back, tousles HAMILTON’s hair, kisses him lightly.)

HAMILTON (breaking off): So is that cognac just for decoration, Calhoun, or are you gonna offer Mark and me a drink?

SCOUT: You’re already helping yourself to my best, Fleming. … (He picks up the CD remote, points it at the player in the bookshelves near the door, presses a button, sets it back down.) … For you. (The instrumental version of Third Eye Blind’s [Slow Motion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLBfCIdkkLE) begins to play softly.)

HAMILTON (after hearing the first few bars): Thanks, Scout – for everything.

SCOUT: You’re welcome. … Cognac, Mark?

MARK: When the bartender’s less overdressed. (He turns SCOUT to face him, fingers his shirt.)

SCOUT: Still curious?

MARK: Way more than that. … (He places his hands on SCOUT’s stomach, slowly moves them up SCOUT’s torso, then down his arms, removing his shirt, drapes it over the back of SCOUT’s desk chair, then leans in for a gentle, tentative first kiss. Breaking off:) Two snifters might be enough. Leaves more hands free. (He disengages from SCOUT.)

SCOUT (unstopping the cognac bottle): You do have your uses, Johnson.

MARK (walking to the fireplace): I try. But you might find Lena has more.

SCOUT (laughing, pouring two snifters): No doubt. … You should have seen Mark today, Ham. Almost made Sean fall in love with him.

HAMILTON (amused): Really?

MARK: What can I say? I’m shameless. And I had help. … (Looking at the lava lamp:) How charmingly retro. A Calhoun family heirloom?

WILL (contentedly caressing HAMILTON’s enfolding arms): Scout’s dad’s. Scout’s waiting for it to appreciate.

SCOUT (picking up the snifters, handing one to WILL): Johnson, if you ever read the school rules, you’d find that live-flame devices in the dorms are frowned on. Technically including candles.

MARK (rejoining SCOUT): Anything else that’s frowned on in the dorms?

SCOUT (wrapping an arm around MARK:) Lots of things, but some are worth the candle. … (Raising his snifter:) To the four girls we wish were here with us.

MARK: And to our six new commitments. We’ll make good on them together.

SCOUT: We will.

HAMILTON: Thanks, guys.

(SCOUT and WILL, after clinking glasses, guide the snifters first to MARK’s and HAMILTON’s lips, then to their own. MARK and HAMILTON each raise a hand to help, fingers intertwining around the snifters.)

WILL: So Mark, what’s with Ham’s mom’s invitation to you to spend Sunday night at the Flemings’?

MARK (shrugging innocently): I’ve spent three of the last four Sunday nights in Ham’s bed.

WILL (appalled): Half a day after you’d both been with your girls? Whatever happened to only doing it when you really need to?

HAMILTON (smiling softly at MARK): In my bed, but with pants on and door open. We catch up on schoolwork, then go to bed and tell each other about our weekends.

MARK: Ham and I are trying to ease his parents into what we’ll have to tell them soon. We want to let them see the affection first.

SCOUT: Good idea. … I gather that’s going well.

MARK: Better, apparently. The first time I slept over, Ham’s dad made a point of mentioning Jake from behind his newspaper at breakfast. Like to warn us that he can deal with gay, but not with two-timing. But the last two times, there was none of that. Ham’s mom woke us up with coffee and a kiss – one for me, too. And his dad was all charm … especially with Ham’s mom.

HAMILTON: Yeh … _soooo_ embarrassing.

WILL: You’ll survive. … But that’s bold, Mark.

MARK: You should talk, Krudski. While you’ve had the whole school feeling sorry for your pathetic ass, ‘cause you’ve supposedly been waiting for a troubled townie girl and not getting any, you’ve been doing _two_ fourth-year goddesses. Imagine my surprise this evening when Alice told me that.

WILL: Hey, I offered to wait for Bella. She said no, that would be too much pressure. What she wanted, and what she has, is my promise to try to stay ready for her until she’s ready for me. Besides, you and Ham are in no position to complain about duplicity. And where do you think Bella got the idea for my arrangement from? Of course, I only saw that yesterday.

MARK (grinning): Yeh, Alice said that occurred to her and Jan today, too. And however crappy you and Ham may feel about deceiving or using them, the _Rag_ girls are wildly happy. For Jackie and Ham, for Bella and you, even for Anne and me. Alice was sharing with me how they felt.

WILL: Not too much, I hope.

MARK: Jealous of me with Bella’s stand-in?

WILL: Part of what I owe Steve.

MARK (laughing): Yes, it is. And Alice is worth it. I wondered why she was being so affectionate, but Ham started it with us, so I didn’t fight it. I see now she was trying to make me not feel left out after having bedded my guy. But we were interrupted before she could tell me about that.

SCOUT: By whom? Everybody defers to her.

HAMILTON (glumly): By Ryder and me.

SCOUT: What?

MARK: Susan and Wendy’s thing with Ryder turns out to be an effort to turn him. They pulled Hamilton into that. It didn’t go well. Alice and I had to break it up.

SCOUT: Oh crap. … You OK, Ham?

MARK: No, he’s not. Ryder suspects that Jake’s a girl.

WILL: So? He probably has since the last week of summer session, when he caught Ham and Jake making out in the library, stuck his nose next to her neck, sniffed her, and made a crack about “genetic mutations.”

HAMILTON: Yeh, but this evening he voiced his suspicions, and I was dumb enough to react to them.

SCOUT: Ham, if Ryder suspected the whole truth, he could easily have gotten proof just by driving up to Grottlesex. He hasn’t, so he probably assumes Jacqueline’s still cross-dressing. That you’d let her go so that she could stop cross-dressing has probably never occurred to him.

WILL: Yeh, Ryder probably thinks, like everyone else, that Jake left because, the last time anyone saw you and her together in public at Rawley, you told her – on the docks in front of a couple dozen people who were all watching because you’d just punched Ryder – that she wasn’t worth the grief Ryder was giving you. That’s an illusion he won’t want to give up.

HAMILTON: Actually, he asked me tonight whether that was staged for his benefit. The guy sees a lot, so much that it’s creepy. Like, that day on the docks, he made a crack about giving Jake and me “a shower caddy for two” – and then Finn caught us in the showers. And the night he pulled his video camera stunt in common room, he predicted you’d lose your scholarship – and you did.

WILL (reaching back to ruffle HAMILTON’s hair): So Ryder’s deep. But so’s that cupboard full of miracles you were telling Jacqueline about today. Those miracles are just love, Ham. If we love one another, Ryder can’t hurt us, and his trying to hurt us just gives us opportunities to love better – to grow, to exceed expectations, to let better dreams than we can dream come true.

(WILL lifts the snifter, around which his fingers are interlaced with HAMILTON’s, to HAMILTON’s lips. HAMILTON takes a sip, looking into WILL’s eyes. MARK exchanges a smile with SCOUT, pulls in behind him, raises their snifter to SCOUT’s lips.)

WILL (gently): We don’t imagine how good we can be, Ham. Our expectations are so low … our dreams aren’t worthy of us. That’s the enemy, not Ryder.

(HAMILTON attempts an intense kiss.)

WILL (pulling back, nipping playfully): Gumball machine.

HAMILTON: Mmmm … and you’ve been feeding me all the right coins all day. (He tries again.)

WILL (pulling back again): Patience, lover. “ _Non est Veneris properanda voluptas_.”

HAMILTON: Arrrrgh … Scout, how do you stand it?

SCOUT: Not without difficulty.

MARK (setting SCOUT’s snifter down on SCOUT’s desk): Ham, remember how you and I were, the first three weeks of this term, when we were falling for each other? Those late afternoons in the boathouse, after practice?

HAMILTON: We were in agony … first unable, then not even wanting, to hide it.

MARK (beginning to graze SCOUT’s sides with his fingertips): Yeh. … We loved each other, and Jacqueline, too much to let ourselves act on it … for three weeks … but just barely. How long could we have done that?

HAMILTON (setting WILL’s snifter next to SCOUT’s): Who knows? You deal with that one moment at a time.

MARK: Can you imagine being roommates, and doing that for ten weeks?

HAMILTON (starting to run his hands lightly over WILL’s sides): For as long as it’s been since Will and Scout were at the Waldorf?

MARK: Yeh.

(SCOUT and WILL look at each other, then at MARK and HAMILTON.)

MARK (smiling): Neither of you has told anyone.

SCOUT: Bella?

MARK: Of course not. It’s just what Ham or I’d have done, too, Scout. After St. Martin, but before you came back here, you and Will needed to show each other, once, that the bond you’d made didn’t depend on two girls who'd left your lives. For you guys, the Waldorf was the perfect place to do that.

HAMILTON: Where’d Scout take you for dinner?

WILL (still ruffling HAMILTON’s hair, his eyes locked with SCOUT’s): After lunch at the Algonquin, a tour of the Public Library, tea at the Plaza, and a stroll through Central Park? Tavern on the Green.

MARK (gently biting SCOUT’s ear): Prince.

HAMILTON (nuzzling WILL’s throat): Magical, isn’t it, Will? The park, the topiary, the twinkling lights …

WILL (purring): Yeh …

MARK: And sometime that night – maybe before you made love, maybe after – you promised each other that you wouldn’t do it again, here at school, alone, except for emotional emergencies.

(SCOUT, his eyes locked with WILL's, reaches back, grabs MARK’s hair.)

HAMILTON (still lightly stroking WILL’s sides): And you haven’t.

MARK (still grazing SCOUT’s sides): For ten weeks, until Ham sandbagged you yesterday …

HAMILTON: You’ve hardly touched each other …

MARK: You’ve just looked at each other …

HAMILTON: And flirted, and teased …

MARK: And commiserated.

HAMILTON: Haven’t hugged …

MARK: Haven’t kissed …

HAMILTON: Haven’t fallen asleep together …

MARK: Haven't heard the beat of the other's heart …

HAMILTON: Haven't let him feel how much you want to help him love a girl …

MARK: Even better than you love each other … 

HAMILTON: Even though you’ve both wanted to, desperately.

MARK: It’s so obvious. And so beautiful.

HAMILTON: But tonight you will. And Scout, your letting Will bring Bella into it … showing him you that you’ll support his being with her … even though you’re not fully over her yourself yet …

MARK: That’s princely.

HAMILTON: Mark and I are really glad to be here to share it. And flattered that you guys are doing this in part for us.

WILL (softly): For all of us, Ham. All eight of us.

MARK (placing SCOUT’s hands on WILL’s chest): For all of us, then.

(WILL quivers at the touch.)

HAMILTON (kissing WILL’s shoulder): Happy Thanksgiving, guys. … (He disengages from WILL, takes MARK’s hand.) … Take your time. Mark and I need to make a couple of quick phone calls. … (To MARK:) Come with.

(HAMILTON leads MARK into the walk-in closet, shuts the door.)

 

*       *       *


	23. Scene 20 - More calendography

INT - RYDER’S DORM ROOM, RAWLEY BOYS’, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

The room - a single - is dimly lit by a single small reading lamp on the desk, at which RYDER, still in his blue jeans, sits. Also on his desk are a staple remover, a hole punch, two piles of enveloped calendars - one to his right and one to his left, each containing about six envelopes - and a pile of six sheets of paper.  Each sheet is identical to the calendars’ central sheet, for the month of July – save that its photo is a black-and-white shot of a conspicuously female JAKE Pratt, reclining nude save for a sheet corner covering her lower abdomen.

RYDER, softly but gleefully humming Parry’s “[Jerusalem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOFHVXE6yWs),” takes an enveloped calendar from the pile to his right, removes the calendar from its envelope, opens it to the month of July, loosens the staples of the calendar, removes the sheet for July, sets it atop a pile of six similar sheets on the floor, and carefully replaces it with its Pratt-photo variation. RYDER refastens the staples, punches in the top of the page for July a hole aligned with the holes in the other pages of the calendar, closes the calendar, puts it back into its envelope, sets the envelope on the pile of envelopes to his left. He then begins to repeat the procedure.

 

*       *       *


	24. Scene 21 - Our toil shall strive to mend

INT – BANKS' LIVING ROOM, ABOVE THE GAS STATION, NEW RAWLEY – DAY 2, WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(The room is light only by a lamp on an end table by a sofa. Two mugs with teabags dangling out of them sit on coasters atop the end table.

BELLA and GRACE sit at the end of sofa nearer the lamp, BELLA closer to the end table, each with one arm around the other, their free hands holding open across their laps a hardbound copy of _[The Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet: A Frankly Annotated First Folio Edition](https://books.google.co.id/books?id=B3tDkrhNy04C)._  BELLA wears a white terrycloth housecoat over red plaid flannel pyjamas. GRACE wears a green plaid flannel nightgown with a lace collar. BELLA reads in a muted voice that suggests their father may be asleep.)

BELLA: A glooming peace this morning with it brings;  
           The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.  
           Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;  
           Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:  
           For never was a story of more woe  
           Than this of … ?

GRACE (laughing): Romeo and Mercutio. … (Hugging BELLA:) Thank you.

BELLA (closing the book): Better?

GRACE: Unbelievably better! The first half of the play, before Mercutio's killed, is so much more inspiring - but so much funnier, too! Who'd have thought that "You kiss by the book" is a laugh line? Or that the "balcony scene" is hilarious - the funniest scene in the play?

BELLA: Jake thinks it's the funniest scene in any of Shakespeare's plays - and Jake knows them all.

GRACE: And you're so right about the moment when Romeo first sees Juliet at the dance. It's magical. It's "true love," just like in fairy tales. Romeo falls in love because he feels, emotionally, what he can't see physically. He passes the test of true love - just like the Princess in "The Frog Prince" or Beauty in "Beauty and the Beast" - even though the physical veil he sees through isn't one of ugliness.

BELLA: Not exactly ugliness. But Shakespeare makes Juliet years younger than she is in his sources. And he tells us she's only thirteen twice before the dance scene - although he never bothers to tell us anyone else's age. Maybe he does that at least partly to make it unmistakable that Romeo doesn't fall for her just because of her body - which can't be the prettiest body he's ever seen.

GRACE: To make it obvious that when Romeo says, "I never saw true beauty til this night," he's talking about a spiritual beauty that he sees with his heart, not a physical beauty that he sees with his eyes.

BELLA: That's what "true beauty" is, isn't it?

GRACE (smiling): Yeh. … But the second half of the play, after Mercutio's death, is _soooo_ wicked! You're right - it's an afterlife, 'cause we think, in the swordfight scene, that everybody's either dead or about to die, and that the play's about to end. And it's way less inspiring than the first half of the play.

BELLA: Which is?

GRACE: True love in this life.

BELLA: Exactly. The "transparent heresy" that Romeo talks about in the play's second scene, the attack on afterlife-focused religion, isn't just voiced by a couple of emotionally distraught teens - it's acted out onstage.

GRACE: Their afterlife is so nasty that we actually feel happy for Romeo and Juliet when they escape it by killing themselves. It doesn't feel like a tragedy at all.

BELLA: Partly 'cause we've already written them all off emotionally in the swordfight scene. But you're right - Romeo and Juliet kill themselves to escape the afterlife.

GRACE: Of which the only good part is having sex. … Meaning that having sex with someone we truly love is a close to heaven as we get?

BELLA: Eh … I don't think Shakespeare's saying there's no afterlife, just that it's God's concern, not ours - our job is to love one another in this life. Shakespeare's dream in this play is to give us a vision of true earthly love so inspiring that we don't need the promise of an afterlife. … "Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die" - meaning …?

GRACE: When I orgasm. This "frankly annotated" edition's even better than SparkNotes.

BELLA: It is. … "Take him and cut him out in little stars" - meaning, I'll look up and see his face framed in the stars - "And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun." … The "garish sun" is the afterlife, and it's "garish," meaning blinding, morally, because … ?

GRACE: Because the Protestants and Catholics were killing each other about whether we get it by works, or faith, or grace. … So if the second half of the play's not a tragedy, what is it?

BELLA: An argument.

GRACE: But it's passionate.

BELLA: Maybe people slaughtering each other in the name of a God of love was something Shakespeare was passionate about ending.

GRACE: Incredibly passionate. I mean, the play's climax - the swordfight scene and Juliet's "Gallop apace" soliloquy - that's so rude, so shocking, so totally disconcerting. It changes everything, and leaves us with no rational explanation.

BELLA: It's deliberately surreal.

GRACE: Did they even have that word back then?

BELLA: No. They might have called it "mystical." And that's the point. Love's a mystery, so God's a mystery - one we can only grasp by loving one another, and being grateful for the chance to do it. We can't understand it with our heads. We can only feel it with our hearts. Which is why we should "hang up" all the philosophy about God and the afterlife. 

GRACE: Or we end up killing each other?

BELLA: Yeh. So this play tries to humble reason before love. It shows the audience how badly reason can mislead them. And it reminds them that love is something that reason can't hope to grasp by making the play itself something that can can't be understood rationally, that can only be felt emotionally.

GRACE: So that line at the start of the first scene, the one you told me to remember - "They must take it sense that feel it" - is a warning about how we we'll have to take the play, namely, by feeling it emotionally?

BELLA: Good!

GRACE (frowning): So how did Shakespeare get away with staging this? Like you said, it's "transparent heresy" - and incredibly lewd. And why hasn't anybody seen, until a month ago, how Shakespeare originally staged it? And how did that get forgotten? And how did Hamilton see it?

BELLA (setting the book on the table): That's a lot of questions, girl.

GRACE: We have a lot of teabags.

BELLA (smiling, taking the mugs, handing one to GRACE): We're still trying to figure out how he got away with staging plays like this.

GRACE: Plays?  More than one? 

BELLA: Looks like it. 

GRACE: How many?

BELLA: We don't know yet. That'll take a while.  

GRACE: For example?

BELLA: Shakespeare's next play after _R and J_ seems to be a mock-apology for the offenses of _R and J_.  It makes a lot more sense, and it's a lot funnier, if _R and J_ was first staged in a way that offended a lot of people.

GRACE: So it's proof that Hamilton's right?

BELLA: No, but it's indicative. It's called _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Its last scene is a parody of R &J, and part of it's about how Shakespeare's censor, a guy called the Master of the Revels ...

GRACE: The guy who marches in and tries to close the play at the end of _Shakespeare in Love_?

BELLA: Yeh, him.  It's about how he's totally innocent of any responsibility for the offenses that _R and J_ has given, how it's all the fault of Shakespeare and his acting company.

GRACE: Oh wow! Read it with me?

BELLA: Happy to. But not tonight.

GRACE (quickly masking visible disappointment): So how was all that forgotten?

BELLA: We're not sure yet. That'll take a while, too. But some things that could have helped that happen are clear.

GRACE: Like?

BELLA: While the Puritans ruled England, from 1642 to 1660, they closed all the theaters.

GRACE: Oh yeh … and banned Christmas. Really dumb.

BELLA: Christmas was different back then. So was theater. And when the theaters reopened, a lot had changed.

GRACE: Like?

BELLA: Women acted in plays. Teenage boys no longer played all the pretty female parts. And the wars of religion were over, and people wanted to forget them. 

GRACE: Ah …

BELLA: And for a century after that, Shakespeare's plays were usually staged in re-written forms.

GRACE: So _R and J_ became a musical about rival London street gangs?

BELLA: Funny. It was usually either given a happy ending or re-set in the Roman Republic's civil war.

GRACE: So that it wouldn't remind people of the wars of religion?

BELLA: Maybe. You might like the Roman civil war re-write, though.

GRACE: Why?

BELLA: The Mercutio character lasts until the end of the play, and dies cracking jokes amidst a political bloodbath.

GRACE: Gross. ... But I can see how the way the play had originally been staged could have been forgotten. … So how did Hamilton see it?

BELLA: Well, the last clue was provided by Scout. You know how he's kinda fanatical about introductions?

GRACE: Yeh, you told me how he introduced Hamilton to you at the diner last summer - as if the Flemings had never come here for a fill-up.

BELLA: Scout noticed that Mercutio's not named until after the Queen Mab speech, when Romeo ends that speech by saying "Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace." So Scout suggested that maybe Mercutio's delivery of that speech isn't erotic after all, 'cause it would be really weird to for Romeo to be fondled onstage by a nameless masker who hasn't been introduced to the audience.

GRACE: Oh yeh … Good point.

BELLA: We all agreed it was a problem. But Hamilton still bought your argument that the way Mercutio delivers the Queen Mab speech has to be erotic. And one Wednesday night in mid-October, with a little help from Mark … 

GRACE: He saw that Mercutio has already been introduced to the audience - even though that introduction turns out to be a lie.

BELLA (smiling): Yeh.

GRACE: I'm still surprised Will didn't see it first.

BELLA: Like I said, Ham was inspired.

GRACE: By Mark?

BELLA: Partly. But not mostly. You'll meet his inspiration this weekend.

GRACE (smiling): So Jake, Hamilton, Mark and their girlfriends from Grottlesex will finally come out to the prep school and Ham's parents this weekend?

BELLA: What makes you think Jake and Hamilton have girlfriends at Grottlesex?

GRACE: Uh, the fact that Ham's clearly not really gay, but spends all his weekends at Grottlesex? And that Jake set Mark up with a girlfriend from Grottlesex - obviously so that he can take care of Hamilton during the weeks without falling for him or feeling too weird about it? Jake's gotta have done the same thing for Hamilton. Probably with help from his own girlfriend.

BELLA: So why do you think Jake left Rawley?

GRACE: Because he and Hamilton fell in love - but wanted to end up with girls. So Jake transferred to a coed school close enough for Hamilton to visit on weekends, where it's way easier for them to be with girls together than it would have been at Rawley. If two straight guys in love are going to solve their problem by loving two girls together, it's way easier to do it at a coed school, and way better to do it at a school were the Dean isn't one of their dads.

BELLA: And why do you think Hamilton and Mark are still letting almost everyone at the prep school think that they and Jake are gay?

GRACE: To make it easier to tell everyone, especially Hamilton's parents, that they're part a three-couple group - one I'm guessing will grow you and Will get together, and when Scout finds the right girl. The longer they let people think they're gay, the happier people will be to learn that they're not - and the better their group will look by comparison. And I understand why you, Scout, Will and Sean are inspired by it.

BELLA: Do you?

GRACE: Bringing a happy ending out of two straight guys falling in love? Yeh, that takes imagination and guts. Most guys in that predicament would see only two choices - going gay or breaking up. But their third choice, if they do it right - if they keep the group about couples, and if the couples help each other - could work really well. It could last. The true love at the core of it could grow. My guess is that that's what's happening.

BELLA: Not bad, little sister. Not bad at all.

GRACE: So I'm right.

BELLA: You'll find out this weekend. Jake and Anne will come here tomorrow.

GRACE: Tomorrow? How?

BELLA: By snowmobile. Hamilton's parents have invited Jake to spend Thanksgiving with them.

GRACE: So Anne can have Thanksgiving dinner with us after all?

BELLA: No, I'm afraid we've lost her to Mark. But yes, Ham does have a girlfriend at Grottlesex. She'll be here later this weekend. And I'll make sure you meet her.

GRACE (hugging BELLA tighter): Thanks. And Jake's girlfriend?

BELLA: Ask Ham's girlfriend when you meet her. And yes, Ham, Mark and Jake will come out as straight this weekend - to everybody. But until that happens, don't blab - to anyone, OK?

GRACE: OK.

BELLA: And Jake's Thanksgiving invitation is a surprise for Hamilton. So don't blab about that, either.

GRACE: Who would I tell - snowed in with you in the kitchen all day tomorrow?

BELLA: Our dinner guest?

GRACE: Oh … Don't tell Scout?

BELLA: If you do, he'll worry all through dinner and leave early. Let Ham and Jake tell him about it afterwards.

GRACE: Got it. … So does Finn buy that Shakespeare meant  _R and J_ to be staged the way you just showed me?

BELLA: Finn hasn't heard about it yet.

GRACE: Why not? He's published articles about Shakespeare, like, in scholarly journals, hasn't he?

BELLA: He has.

GRACE: So who better to help Hamilton do that?

BELLA: No one. But that's not what Hamilton wants to do with this.

GRACE: But isn't this, like, a sure ticket to Harvard?

BELLA: It is, if Ham wanted to use it for that. But he doesn't.

GRACE: What does he want to use it for?

BELLA: Love.

GRACE (smiling, nestling back into BELLA): Tell me.

BELLA: Ham wants to do two things with it. First, he wants to tell it to Jake's mom. To soften the blow of telling her about some things that Jake's done.

GRACE: Like falling in love with a guy, and ending up as part of a group?

BELLA: That and a little more. Anyhow, he wants to give Jake's mom the chance to stage _R and J_ the way Shakespeare intended for the first time in at least three centuries.

GRACE: Uh, isn't Jake's mom a little old to play Juliet? And …

BELLA: Yeh, she is. And Jake doubts that she'd want to. But Jake thinks she might like to try directing - and that she'd be good at it.

GRACE: Sweet. … So what else does Hamilton want to do with this?

BELLA: Make money - as much as possible.

GRACE: No way! Hamilton already has money. And he couldn't care less about having more. 

BELLA: Not for himself. For Rawley - and New Rawley.

GRACE: This town?

BELLA: He wants to make it a town that Rawley kids will want to come back to and settle down in after university.

GRACE: Why?

BELLA: I think he plans to do that himself. And he likes company.

GRACE: And how does he hope to do that? I mean, it's kind of a blue-collar town.

BELLA: By having the prep school take day students. A lot of day students. At affordable tuition rates - tuition-free for kids who need that.

GRACE: But making Rawley affordable won't be enough to do that. There aren't half a dozen kids in my class who could pass the prep school's entrance exam.

BELLA: That's why he wants to turn the middle school into a charter school - run by Rawley.

GRACE: Oh my god …

BELLA: And to recruit Rawley's summer session guest students from Edmund - which, in a few years, will change Edmund.

GRACE: He wants to turn us all into preppies?

BELLA: That's the plan in a nutshell.

GRACE: And how does he plan to turn what he's seen in _R and J_ into enough money to do that?

BELLA: Well, _R & J_ isn't the only love story he has up his sleeve. And inspired alumni can be generous. And there are ways of doing what he wants to do that cost absolutely nothing. Like what he did with Sean and Liz today.

GRACE: He plans to school and mate us into extinction.

BELLA: As Hamilton puts it, "Resistance is futile. You _will_ be assimilated." 

GRACE: Funny.

BELLA: For starters, he wants to publish what he's seen in _R and J._ But not as an academic journal article. As a teen novel.

GRACE: A teen novel.

BELLA: Yep. One that high school and college English teachers will love, and keep on their reading lists for a long, long time. And that Ham can sell the movie rights to for a bundle. A novel about how a bunch of teenagers see how _R and J_ was meant to be staged.

GRACE: Fiction?

BELLA: Fictionalized. Names and other details will be changed.

GRACE: And Hamilton's gonna write it?

BELLA: No. But he has this friend, a townie scholarship kid, who's a not-half-bad writer, and who's always whining about feeling like a charity case and a moocher. Ham thinks it might be good for him to make a few million dollars - and give it all away. Soon.

GRACE: He's right! That'll be _soooo_ good for Will. And a perfect first novel. And … 

BELLA: "A sure ticket to Harvard"?

GRACE: Yeh.

BELLA: Will won't take that, any more than Hamilton will. 

GRACE: You're sure?

BELLA: Grace, what you saw, about how well Mercutio loves Romeo, could easily be published in a scholarly journal - you'd just need a PhD co-author. And it would look great in a college application. Will, Hamilton and Scout all told you that. Remember what you said?

GRACE: "Not interested."

BELLA: And now that you've told me how you saw it, I think I understand why. Do you?

GRACE: It would have felt wrong - 'cause it was true love, and I only saw it because … I felt loved.

BELLA: It's the same with what Ham's seen, Grace. It's love, he's seen it because he's in love, and if you try to own love, you lose it. That's why Hamilton won't use this for himself. Why Will will publish it under a pseudonym. Why none of us will keep a cent from it. And why it won't be in anyone's college application.

GRACE: So we'll be keeping this secret for a long time.

BELLA: Not from our parents, lovers, and close friends. But from the public, yeh. 

GRACE: So Will's agreed to write it?

BELLA: He's already kinda started. He's been writing up the story of Jake and Hamilton since St. Martin. But about what Ham's seen in this play, Will hasn't heard yet.

GRACE: Why not? I mean, he helped Hamilton see it, didn't he? You all worked on this together.

BELLA: I'm supposed to tell Will.

GRACE: Then why haven't you? Will's nuts about Shakespeare - and about "true love" stories. And this play's his favorite. Learning how good it really is will totally blow his mind. It's something he'll never forget.

BELLA: I'm supposed to tell him in bed. Ham made me promise not to tell him until then.

GRACE (jaw dropping): That's serious pressure, big sister. Hamilton Fleming plays hardball.

BELLA: So does Jake Pratt. … (Picking up the "frankly annotated" edition of _Romeo and Juliet_ :) Know how I got this book?

GRACE: No, I haven't seen it before tonight. … Too "frankly annotated" for a fourteen-year-old?

BELLA: No. … Jake gave it to me at Penn Station, when I left New York in August. 'Cause Jake knew _R and J_ is Will's favorite literary work. I haven't shown it to you because of the inscription Jake wrote in it. … (Handing the book to GRACE:) Read it.

GRACE (opening the book to the frontispiece):  

             "Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books,  
              But love from love, toward school with tender looks."

(Wincing:) That's a kick in the ass …

BELLA: Yeh. … Jake and I were both headed back to school. Jake was about to switch to a new school and separate from Hamilton. I was about to come back here and commit to Will - which Ham and Jake had just spent four days giving me the courage to do.

GRACE (closing the book): Jake's telling you how lucky you are … (Handing the book back to BELLA:) How if he were in your shoes, he'd do more than commit to Will.

BELLA (setting the book back on the end table): And you haven't seen this book 'cause you're already giving me enough grief about that.

GRACE: And I don't plan to stop.

BELLA: I gathered that.

GRACE: So who knows, Bella - about what you've told me tonight? 'Cause I'd really like to be able to talk about this with whoever knows about it.

BELLA: No grown-up knows any of it yet - Jake's mom will be the first. Mark and Anne know everything I know. Jake knows everything except Ham's plan to make money from it and to use that money to bring town kids into the prep school.

GRACE: Why's Hamilton hiding that from Jake?

BELLA: Jake might not want to have the story published - finds it kind of embarrassing. But Ham's pretty sure Jake will 'come round.

GRACE: And Scout?

BELLA: He's heard only what Will's heard.

GRACE: Too close to Will to keep a secret from him?

BELLA: No. … Ham was hoping to tell Scout and Liz together … with his girlfriend from Grottlesex, who knows as much as Jake knows. But Liz broke up with Scout before Ham could do that. And now Scout doesn't have a girlfriend - and Hamilton thinks you should hear this from someone you love.

GRACE (looking into BELLA's eyes): He's right, Bella. I'm really glad I heard it from you. … (Standing, holding out a hand to BELLA:) I'll put the mugs in the dishwasher.

(BELLA hands her mug to GRACE, who exits into the kitchen. BELLA stands, picks up the book, turns off the lamp, leaving the room lit only by light from the kitchen and streetlight from the windows. BELLA goes to a window, watches the snowfall. After a moment, the light in the kitchen goes off.  GRACE re-enters and joins BELLA at the window.)

GRACE (softly): Bella?

BELLA: Yeh?

GRACE: What Hamilton said to me at the bandstand, after I told him how I'd seen how well Mercutio loves Romeo … 

BELLA: You don't have to tell me, Grace. And if Hamilton wouldn't want you to …

GRACE: I think he would. … He told me about his first conversation alone with Jake last summer, just before their first rowing practice. He said he'd warned Jake that students at the prep school aren't allowed to have motorcycles. And Jake said … 

BELLA: "Students aren't allowed to do a lot of things. Hasn't stopped me yet."

GRACE: Yeh. … Then he said, "Grace, when you think you've found the right guy, don't let being fourteen stop you. Just do it right. And if I can help, I will."

BELLA: He thinks you're ready.

GRACE: With help. My point is … I'm getting help. From a lot of people. Will, Sean, Scout, Mark, Anne … and Hamilton. … And a lot of it's not about me. It's just them being who they are … growing … helping each other … helping you. … I'll be OK, Bella. Even if we lose the gas station. 

BELLA: I'm starting to believe that.

GRACE: So however much your waiting is because of me … don't. These past four months have been wonderful. You've been the perfect big sister. But you don't have to do it alone. You're not doing it alone. And there's nothing you're doing for me, or for anyone, that you can't do better with Will. 

BELLA: Thanks.

GRACE (kissing BELLA's cheek): Good-night.

BELLA (taking GRACE's hand): Wait. … You're with me tonight.

GRACE (moved): Really?

BELLA: Uh - huh.

GRACE: You're sweet, but …

BELLA: No, I'm your big sister. And I want you awake tomorrow. Not exhausted after having stayed up all night reading  _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.

GRACE (wincing): That obvious?

BELLA: Totally. You're way too eager to turn in, baby sister. It's only eleven o'clock. You didn't get up till ten this morning. No way are you ready to sleep.

GRACE: So read some with me?

BELLA (leading GRACE toward the bedrooms): One act. And Mercutio fan, you are gonna love Bottom.

*       *       * 


	25. Scene 22 - Silk boxers

INT - SCOUT’S & WILL’S DORM ROOM, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

(The room is much as it was when last seen, lit only by the space heater and the lava lamp. The CD remote, the now empty mineral water bottle, and two half-full mugs now rest at the pillow end of the cot mattresses, near the hearth. SCOUT’s khaki slacks and WILL’s cut-offs are draped over WILL’s desk chair, HAMILTON’s brushed-denim jeans and MARK’s white cotton slacks over SCOUT’s desk chair. The hand-towels on the hearth remain neatly folded. The two Rawley-crest towels are gone from their hooks on the back of the door to the corridor. The door to the walk-in closet is closed.

HAMILTON and MARK lie on the mattresses, under the sleeping bags from the waist down, hair disheveled, slightly sweat-sheened. HAMILTON lies face up, MARK propped on an elbow next to him, holding an open mobile phone above HAMILTON’s chest.)

HAMILTON: Aw, come on. Wear a hood and scarf and shades. Nobody will recognize you. Nobody would anyhow. Boys don’t turn into girls, everybody knows that.

JAKE (from the mobile phone, on speaker): Alright, Hammy, maybe Saturday evening. If the busses are running, and if Mark can book Anne and me a room at the Inn.

HAMILTON (ecstatic): Yeah! Thanks, babe. Back here, together, with Anne and Mark … it’ll be so good.

JAKE: Don’t get ideas, boy. You and I need to be rested when we talk with your folks. I want to meet our six new friends. We have work to do with Lena and Bella. And I have to strut my stuff.

ANNE (also from the phone): And I need to meet Liz and Sean. And meet Scout and Will properly. And salvage my gay guy’s reputation. … (Sighing:) So much to do, so little time.

HAMILTON (to MARK): What do we do with them?

MARK: Wish them goodnight, so they can get back to perving on us.

JAKE: So you can get back to your sleepover with your bashful boyfriends, you mean.

MARK: What, you think we’d rather snuggle Scout and Will than be phone-teased by you two?

ANNE (laughing): Let’s hope so. Otherwise I’m going to be seriously disappointed.

MARK: You know you won’t be. But we are keeping them out of their room.

JAKE: Yeh, we are. Say hi to them for us, please.

HAMILTON: We will.

ANNE: Sweet dreams, guys. Happy Thanksgiving!

MARK: You too, girls. Goodnight. (He closes the phone.)

HAMILTON: So call the Inn, please?

MARK (reaching up to set the phone on the hearth): Ham, I’ve already booked a room for Saturday. The girls will be here as soon as they can. There was never any doubt.

HAMILTON (pulling MARK in for a kiss): I knew there must be some reason why I keep you around. … (Briefly breaking off, loudly): You turkeys can come out now. (He resumes kissing MARK.)

(The door of the walk-in opens, and SCOUT and WILL emerge, sweat-sheened, hair matted, wrapped in Rawley-crest towels, and stand next to SCOUT’s dresser.)

WILL: You guys always finish by doing that?

HAMILTON (not bothering to break off): By kissing? It is traditional.

WILL: By phoning your girls.

MARK (breaking off): Best part of our afterplay.

(HAMILTON brushes MARK’s temple.)

MARK (looking into HAMILTON’s eyes): Well, one of the best parts.

HAMILTON: There are no parts. … (To SCOUT and WILL:) You two have a nice snog in the closet?

WILL: Thank you, yes.

HAMILTON: You really did not have to do that.

SCOUT: No way was my first conversation with Anne going to be a phone chat in bed with Mark.

MARK: No problem. Ham’s just saying we didn’t need the privacy.

SCOUT: I know.

MARK: So come back to bed.

WILL: Soon. Ham, were you serious, yesterday morning, about your Christmas present for Jacqueline?

HAMILTON: Totally. Except that it’s not just for Jacqueline. It’s for Anne, too.

WILL: Thought so. Scout and I wanted to show you what we’d like to wear for it.

HAMILTON: Towels?

WILL: No. In my case, this. (He removes his towel, setting it atop SCOUT’s dresser, revealing a pair of scant dark-blue boxers.)

MARK (cracking up): God, Krudski … what are those?

WILL: Low rise boxers, “shia luo” style. Marky Mark was clueless.

MARK: Ham, are those really boxers?

HAMILTON: Must be. Not briefs, not trunks. Way sexier than a thong. Especially the slits up the sides.

MARK: But they’re the wrong shape – like a tuna can where a soup can should be. And barely adequate under certain conditions … obviously. … (To WILL:) Where did you get those?

WILL: My seduction present from Scout.

HAMILTON (also cracking up, to SCOUT): You didn’t?

WILL: He did. When Scout wants to sleep with you, he doesn’t do something crass like ask. He takes you to Saks, buys you these, then takes you out on the town in them.

SCOUT: Give me a break. We needed dress shirts. These were just … an impulse purchase.

WILL: Uh - huh. But townie pride being what it is, I insisted that Scout get himself some, too. … (He removes SCOUT’s towel and sets it on SCOUT’s dresser, revealing a crimson pair of otherwise identical boxers on SCOUT.) ... Think Jacqueline and Anne will like them?

HAMILTON (choking): Oh yeh …

SCOUT (opening a dresser drawer): The good news is, they come in packs of three – so we have extras. … (He removes from the drawer two more pair, black and dark green. Tossing them to HAMILTON and MARK:) And they’re silk.

MARK: Oh my god – the famous silk boxers!

HAMILTON (growling): Mark …

MARK (recovering): Sorry. I’m trying to be good. I haven’t mentioned Liz all evening. … (To SCOUT:) But she really did like them. … May we?

SCOUT: That’s why I gave them to you.

(HAMILTON and MARK slip the boxers on under the sleeping bags.)

MARK: Wow … sinful.

HAMILTON: Very. … (He pulls MARK to him, rubs against him lightly.) Oh my god …

MARK: Yeh … Scout, how do you ever, you know, unwind, in these things?

SCOUT: You don’t. That’s the point. Save them for when you’re with your girls. Or for Wednesday nights, until they’re here.

MARK: We can keep them?

SCOUT: With my compliments to Jacqueline and Anne. And my condolences for your loss at the girls’ school today, Ham.

HAMILTON: Droll. But thanks, really. … (To MARK:) Saturday night will be fun.

WILL (walking to the bookshelf by the door): You talked Anne and Jacqueline into coming Saturday?

HAMILTON: Weather permitting. … (To MARK:) And if you and I are going to make it till Saturday, we should take these off. (He starts to remove his boxers.)

MARK (stopping HAMILTON): Mmmm … don’t. I’d like you ready for tomorrow night.

HAMILTON: Two nights in a row? Guy …

MARK (nuzzling): It’s Thanksgiving, Ham. Even if we couldn’t wait for it, I still want to celebrate it.

HAMILTON: Oh god … the turkey fetish is back.

WILL (changing the disks in the CD player): It’s not a turkey fetish, Ham. It’s that you should spend Thanksgiving night with someone you’re thankful for, and who helps you be thankful for everything.

MARK: Please?

HAMILTON: Alright, if it means that much to you.

MARK: Mmmm … Thanks, it does. So wear these through tomorrow?

HAMILTON: What, through Thanksgiving dinner?

MARK: Uh - huh. Your mom said Lena, Alice and Wendy will be there. So it’s all good. And you won’t regret it, I promise.

WILL (closing the CD player and rejoining SCOUT): If you let the holiday spirit into it, Ham, you and Mark could have a better night than you’ve ever had without your girls.

HAMILTON (to MARK): Aren’t we having that now?

MARK (looking, with HAMILTON, at SCOUT and WILL): We are.

WILL (after exchanging a smile with SCOUT): Good. So trust me.

HAMILTON (to SCOUT): They’re very strange.

SCOUT: They are. But they’re ours, so their kinks are our kinks.

WILL (snapping the elastic on SCOUT’s boxers): You should talk. … (Gently pushing SCOUT:) In bed, next to Ham, under me, now.

SCOUT: Bossy.

WILL: I own you till morning, preppy. … Music please, Mark?

(MARK reaches for the CD remote, points it at the bookshelf, sets it back down. HAMILTON extends an arm, and SCOUT lies down face-up, resting his head on HAMILTON’s arm and sliding his own arm under HAMILTON’s head, his hand ruffling MARK’s hair. WILL props himself up next to SCOUT, SCOUT’s arm around him, HAMILTON’s hand caressing his head. The Low Anthem’s album, _Oh, My God, Charlie Darwin_ plays, starting with the [title song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jQHKdNAWQo).)

SCOUT: Ham?

HAMILTON: Mmmm?

SCOUT: Is Jake OK?

HAMILTON: She has Anne.

(SCOUT sighs, turns his head to face HAMILTON.)

SCOUT: Your response – yours and Jacqueline’s – to Wendy’s and Susan’s offer… it fit. A weird apology for a weird offense, but you’re right – nothing less would have done.

HAMILTON (turning his head toward SCOUT): Thanks.

SCOUT: Was it really eating you up – not knowing whether you could have stayed with Jake if she’d really been a guy?

HAMILTON: It’s what I committed to try to do when I kissed Jake, but I never got to find out whether I could have.

SCOUT: Only because you were given an even harder task instead.

HAMILTON: Scout, I couldn’t really know which is harder, without having tried to do both.

SCOUT: You’d have done whatever it took. But the tasks we’re given are enough. I glad you’re less worried now about one you weren’t given.

HAMILTON (after a pause): Guy … there’s another weird apology coming. Planned, this time.

SCOUT: I know. Nothing less will do with Lena, either.

MARK: You’re cool with that?

SCOUT (nodding, to HAMILTON): Just give her your best, please.

MARK: We will, if she’ll have us. And if she won’t … at least she’ll know she was wanted.

SCOUT: You’re going to be part of that?

(MARK nods. SCOUT looks questioningly at HAMILTON.)

HAMILTON: Anne insists. Mark would never have asked, but he, Jake and Lena all need him to do this.

SCOUT (to MARK): Your girl’s a saint.

MARK: So’s Lena. A wounded saint. That’s why you want her. It’s why I wanted her. Kindness, given or needed, is… hot.

WILL: And contagious.

SCOUT: No joke. I’m surrounded by it, and I’m melting.

MARK: We all are, guy. We’re programmed to want to reward kindness with sex. And to want to use sex to express it.

SCOUT: Makes us sound more like bonobos than I find flattering.

MARK: We are, a little. But that’s also part of what makes us “little lower than the angels,” “noble in reason, infinite in faculties.”

SCOUT: Excuse me?

MARK: Being loving is part of being smart, Scout. Ever notice that all the smartest animals are social? What’s the most intelligent non-social one?

SCOUT: I dunno. Tigers, maybe?

MARK: Sounds right. And how many social species are smarter than tigers?

SCOUT: Lots. Dozens, at least. But not all social creatures are smart – ants and bees aren’t.

MARK: True. Sociability isn’t sufficient for high intelligence. But it is necessary. It doesn’t pay to invest in big brains unless what one critter learns can be shared with others, including future generations. To do that you need to be social. To have some sense of self that’s part “us,” not just “me.” We couldn’t have much brains without love.

WILL: Could if we had genetic memory. If we could inherit experience.

MARK: Nice for sci-fi. But in reality, you can’t fit anything like a brain into the nucleus of every cell.

WILL: So to think well is pointless unless we love well, too.

MARK: Exactly. That’s why learning to love well is the most important part of the curriculum at every high school, prep school, or college – and everybody knows it – even though it’s never on the course list.

SCOUT: You’re sure it’s not because at our age, we’re obsessed with sex?

MARK: We’re obsessed with sex for good reason. Sex is the best tool for loving well that nature has managed to come up with. It’s no accident that the brainiest creatures are highly sexual, all the time.

WILL: And hairless, and so sensitive all over that after a few days without … or a single intense day … we can do what we just did.

MARK: Right. We’re way more sexual than we need for reproduction. We’re highly sexed because we need to be really kind … or our experiment in high intelligence will crash and burn. That’s why every culture makes such a big deal about how to use sex right – you know, coming-of-age initiation rites, Dionysian mysteries … summer cotillions. … Ow!

HAMILTON: Somebody talks too much.

MARK: Alright, I’ll finish. … Scout, here we are, the smartest and maybe the most sexual creatures ever, having to stay in school and try to focus our big brains throughout the most sexually charged years of our lives, while our bodies are begging us to have sex all the time. But it’s our sexuality that has made our big brains so successful that we need all this schooling. That’s like, a cosmic joke, and it’s on us.

SCOUT: It’s a joke to you because you’ve beaten it. … You and Anne came up with that together, didn’t you?

MARK: That obvious?

SCOUT: Very. Ham’s right, guy, you’re in love.

MARK: Yeh … but with whom, or what? I can’t disentangle what I feel for Anne from what I feel for everything and everyone, starting with Jackie and Ham … and including you guys, Lena, Bella …

WILL: Mark, that’s what a loving a girl’s supposed to do to you – to help you love everyone and see the good in everything.

SCOUT: That’s why a girl takes it personally if her guy does or says anything unkind to anybody.

WILL: If you could disentangle it, if love didn’t spill over into everything else, then it wouldn’t help us be kind to more people than we could bed. We’d still live in bands of a few dozen, like bonobos.

SCOUT: Which we’re not. Did I mention that?

MARK (laughing): Alright, you win.

SCOUT: You’ll do better when Anne’s here.

WILL: And Mark … Bella told me today you’ve made Anne incredibly happy.

HAMILTON: Thanks, guys. He won’t listen to me.

SCOUT: Mark and Anne have been living so completely in the shadow of Jacqueline and you, it’s no wonder they can’t see themselves. … Mark, come here, please.

(MARK looks questioningly at HAMILTON, who smiles and rolls MARK on top of SCOUT.)

SCOUT (pulling his arms out from under WILL and HAMILTON to caress MARK’s head): You and Anne will help lots of people, not just Jacqueline and Ham. And then you’ll know who you are.

(SCOUT kisses MARK, WILL and HAMILTON enfolding and nuzzling them.)

WILL (nuzzling MARK): Mind if I cut in?

MARK (breaking off, rolling off SCOUT to HAMILTON:) Of course not.

WILL: No, Mark. With you.

SCOUT (pulling WILL across him to lie facing MARK, spooning in behind him): About time.

HAMILTON (spooning MARK): Yeh.

(As WILL gently kisses MARK, SCOUT and HAMILTON slides their arms under WILL and MARK’s heads, intertwine their legs to push WILL’s and MARK’s hips together, and lightly graze WILL’s and MARK’s sides with their free hands. WILL and MARK purr and deepen the kiss. Breaking off, WILL takes MARK’s hand, nuzzles it.)

WILL (relaxing on SCOUT’s and HAMILTON’s arms, looking into MARK’s eyes): You and Anne have already been helping Bella and me. I felt that today at the garage. I haven’t seen Bella that happy, or that affectionate, since the day she asked me to stay ready for her, and I agreed. And it wasn’t just for Jacqueline and Ham, and for Sean. It was partly for you and Anne …

MARK: Will …

WILL: Shhhh. Tell me when Anne’s here, with Bella. But thank you.

MARK: Your girl’s a joy. And she’s been so good to Anne and me. Bella’s made it possible for Anne to come here on weekends. She’s shown Anne this campus – I couldn’t. She’s shown us everything in town. She’s had Jen take special care of Anne at the Inn - and now the whole staff pretty much dotes on us.

WILL: Because you’re in love.

MARK: Maybe. … You know, you could have Bella anytime – if you didn’t want it to be perfect, if you weren’t playing for the long run.

WILL: But I do, and I am. We all are. … Could we talk about that, please?

MARK: What?

WILL (rolling onto his back, pulling SCOUT close): The long run … all of us.

HAMILTON: Sure.

WILL: If, against all odds, we can pull this off – get girls we love, stay with them, and stay close …

MARK: You don’t think we can?

WILL: I hope so. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here – starting something it would hurt me, hurt Bella, to lose. … What Jacqueline, Anne, Ham and you have … I can’t imagine any of us giving that up - ever.

HAMILTON: Neither can we. If either couple split, the other would be devastated. So we do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen – to help our lovers love each other well.

MARK: And beyond the affection and emotional support, there’s the sex. People say we’re too young to commit, that we need to get more variety and experience. But we can do that as couples, with other committed couples we really like, and who support our commitment. We just have to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.

SCOUT: Easier said than done. St. Martin became pretty much a free-for-all.

HAMILTON: That was a holiday fling with no future. You, Will, Bella and Lena all have what it takes to do this.

WILL: Sometimes I wonder whether I do.

MARK: Krudski, Alice is awed by your devotion to Bella. And she should know.

WILL: But sometimes you meet a girl who reminds you that if you weren’t already invested in someone … your girl’s not the only girl you could be happy with.

HAMILTON (laughing): Will – Bella, Anne and Lena remind me of that every time I see them. And I was reminded of that six times this afternoon. But after you are invested in one … you love the rest of them through her or with her.

WILL: Ham … I fooled around with a girl I’d just met the same night … after Bella committed to me … without Bella’s knowledge or consent …

SCOUT: So? You’re free to do that. You just have to stay ready for Bella. If it bothers you, tell Bella.

WILL: I did, the next day. But … I keep thinking about that girl … in ways I shouldn’t.

MARK: More than you think about Bella?

WILL: No, just occasionally, unpredictably … but I’m no saint, guys.

SCOUT: You know, when something bothers you, I’m here. And this is the first I’ve heard about this.

WILL: Scout, given how hard you must fight not to think about Bella … how could I bug you with this?

SCOUT: Has someone told you this girl is your half-sister? Or is she a girl you should have known your roommate was in love with?

WILL: No, but …

SCOUT: Then why don’t you tell me about it?

WILL (after a pause): It’s the girl from the Homecoming dance.

(HAMILTON nuzzles MARK’s head.)

SCOUT: Lydia?

WILL (chagrinned): Yeh.

SCOUT (smiling): Well, that’s understandable. You brought her back here, knowing I’d be at Liz’s?

WILL: Of course not. I didn’t plan it. She had a room in town, I walked her back to it. After spending the whole evening with her, how could I not?

SCOUT: You couldn’t. And you have nothing to feel bad about. Lydia’s amazing. If Bella didn’t want anything like that to happen, she should have come to the dance with you. You did ask her.

WILL (glumly): I should have stayed home, too.

SCOUT: We went through this then. There’s only one formal dance each term. You go to it, period. If you go alone, you dance with the single girls. They like it and it helps them find guys. And you were doing that nicely.

WILL: As ordered, _mon capitaine_.

MARK: Scout’s right, you know.

WILL: You guys weren’t there.

HAMILTON: No, but we made up for it. We went to Grottlesex’s Homecoming, with Anne and Jake, the next weekend.

WILL: Great.

SCOUT: Ham, this girl was something special. Bright, sexy as hell, incredibly empathetic. A first-year from the other team’s school, there alone. She came up to us on the veranda after the first set, handed Will a glass of punch, said he danced well, and introduced herself.

MARK: Bold.

WILL: Yeh. I let her know I was spoken for as soon as I politely could, but she didn’t leave. A few minutes later, after I decided I liked her, I asked her if she’d like an introduction to some guys who weren’t taken. She said, “No thanks, I’m happy.”

MARK: Maybe she had a boyfriend at her school. … it was St. Paul’s, right?

WILL: Yeh. All she’d say was that she had “a full plate,” whatever that meant. … She didn’t seem very keen on talking about herself. I think she’s dealing with something heavy.

SCOUT: Will and I traded partners for a couple of dances. As soon as we were alone, Lydia found out who I was, and she went straight to my core. Started asking about what it’s like to have your career chosen for you, to be groomed for it from birth … about what I hoped to accomplish … whether it’s worth it.

HAMILTON: Intense.

SCOUT: But totally supportive, without being superficial.

MARK: So how’d Lydia get to you, Will?

WILL: We talked.

MARK: About?

WILL: Bella and writing.

MARK (amused, nuzzling): No wonder you liked her.

WILL: It was way more than that. As soon as I told her I was spoken for, she asked where my girlfriend was and why she wasn’t with me. She got me to tell her all about Bella and me, seemed genuinely interested through the whole long story. At the end, she squeezed my hand and told me to hang in there, said it was obviously the real thing, that Bella’d come around.

MARK: She will.

WILL: And she offered me some good advice.

MARK: What?

WILL: To stay close to the people Bella’s close to … including our two gay friends.

MARK: Ham and me?

WILL: Jake and Ham. I’d tried to leave them out of it, but Lydia’d asked what made Bella change her attitude toward me. So I’d told her about Jacqueline and Ham the same way I did today with the _Rag_ girls - without mentioning that Jake was cross-dressing, without her turning into a girl when Ham kissed her.

SCOUT: Guy, you’ve gotta be careful about telling story that to girls. Even that way.

WILL: I know. But … I liked her.

HAMILTON: And then?

WILL: We danced, and discussed writing.

MARK: A shared passion?

WILL: No, but it was enough for her that it’s my passion. And she’s well-read.

HAMILTON: So you talked about Faulkner. No wonder she fell for you. Totally not her fault. Incest, rape, castration, suicide, mental illness, racism – how could any girl resist that?

WILL (slowly, deliberately): Pond scum.

HAMILTON: Faulkner writes about that, too?

WILL: Give me a break. I’ve only mentioned Faulkner once, in the shell, our first practice of summer session. I was trying to impress Finn. Like you were trying to impress Jake, with your wisecrack about pond scum. Not to mention taking your shirt off to give Jake an eyeful.

HAMILTON (shrugging innocently): I knew we were going swimming.

WILL (rolling his eyes): Right. … And you knew what Finn was going to say, too, Dean's son.  So your wisecrack was ironic, deliberately … superficial. You were already flirting with Jake – with “him” - on several levels. … (To MARK:) She got that?

MARK: Oh yeh. … So you don’t really like Faulkner?

WILL: Like Ham doesn’t really like guys. I just like other things more. Like Shakespeare. … Look, Faulkner is a great writer. But he didn’t write great literature. He used his skill to tell the South how sick it was. But he didn’t try to heal it. He didn’t inspire, he didn’t edify, he didn’t give hope. He didn’t love.

MARK: So that’s what Lydia and you talked about? Writing as love?

WILL (sheepishly): Like Scout says, she kinda … goes to your core.

MARK: So why’d she poach on your girlfriend?

WILL: She didn’t, really. After the last dance, when I thanked her and leaned in to kiss her, she pulled back and said: “We need to talk. But not here.” Which seemed weirdly _déjà vu_ , because …

HAMILTON: It’s what Jake said to me on the same dance floor at the summer cotillion – the last thing she said before I followed her into the men’s room and kissed her. Was Lydia wearing a dinner jacket?

WILL: That was the other weird thing. She wore a plain, straight black dress, off the shoulders … and a white jacket. A woman’s jacket, but still … She’d taken the jacket off when we got up to dance, but after the last dance, when I helped her put it back on …

MARK: She reminded you of Jake at the summer cotillion. Life is full of weird coincidences. So you walked her back to the Inn.

WILL: No, I assumed we were going to the Inn. But she stopped in front of the General Store Café.

SCOUT: Wasn’t it closed at that hour?

WILL: Yes, but there’s a loft apartment on the top floor, rented out by the night as a B-and-B. She was staying there.

MARK: And you kissed her goodnight, and one thing led to another. Don’t feel bad, guy, it happens.

WILL: It didn’t just happen. She asked me if I’d like to come upstairs and let her take care of me while I thought about Bella. She said it’d be limited, and that I couldn’t reciprocate, but that she’d like to do that for me and Bella.

SCOUT: Oh wow …

WILL: Yeh. This was before I started up with Jan and Alice. Except for one wonderful kiss from Bella, I hadn’t done anything with a girl since Greenwich.

HAMILTON: Greenwich? … (Looking at SCOUT:) Really?

WILL: Later. … And I’d never heard of anyone helping a couple that way, taking nothing in return. It seemed unbelievably kind. I was dumbstruck.

MARK: Mercutio?

WILL: In reality, not fiction.

MARK: Yeh, but Shakespeare thought of it. So I can’t have been the first person to do that, Will. If Jackie’d been sobbing in your arms last June, you might have done the same thing. Not surprising that it might occur to a girl who likes you, given what you were giving up for Bella.

WILL: I know, Mark, but it’s still amazing.

MARK: I just wanted to do it. So, I’m sure, did Lydia. And I certainly don’t blame you for letting her.

WILL: I didn’t let her, at first. I told her it was a beautiful offer, but that I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t not reciprocate.

SCOUT: So which of you gave in?

WILL: Neither of us. She said I could reciprocate someday - just not that night. I asked, “When?” She said, “Soon, I promise. Winter term, if not this term. I’ll be back. Then you can reciprocate any way you like.” When I asked, “Why not tonight?”, she answered, “Because you should have Bella’s consent for that.” And that was just so perfect … I kissed her and we went upstairs.

MARK: And it was memorable, despite being limited?

WILL: Mark, this girl was as magnificent in bed as out of it.

MARK: Really?

WILL: First she opened up her laptop, asked what kind of music helps me think of Bella, put on a queue of classic soft rock albums for me.

MARK: A romantic.

WILL: And while I listened to the first of those songs – Abba’s “Fernando,” ‘cause I’d told her our clowning around to that had made Bella crash her truck on our trip to Carson – she slowly shed every stitch of clothing, except for a black choker with a ruby pendant. And she’s to die for.

MARK: Skilled?

WILL: Yes, but that is so the wrong word.

HAMILTON: What’s the right one?

WILL: Ham, if one word could describe a girl, we wouldn’t need poetry. … Lydia knew I’d never been stripped out of formal wear before. And she did it so well, so slowly, so … totally into it. Opened the shirt first, but left it and the jacket on until last, so that I was still all dressed up even when I was naked.

MARK (laughing): We’ll make a preppy of you yet, Krudski.

WILL: She wouldn’t let me touch her while she was doing it, but by the time she finally slid the tux jacket off me, I was so ready. … Then she pushed me onto the bed and turned off the lights …

SCOUT: What, after all that, she’s shy in bed?

WILL: Anything but. But she said she wanted me to see Bella, not her, even when my eyes were open. … It went on for hours, each time different, each time incredible, and each time followed by really tender kissing and letting me give back a little, never enough to do much for her, just enough to make me feel better about it.

MARK: Will, I’m sure she enjoyed it. So what was the conversation between rounds – Shakespeare?

WILL: Silence. As she let her clothes fall she said: “No more words, Will. No thank-you’s, no compliments. Nothing. I’m not here.” And at the end, when I told her I couldn’t do any more, she just kissed me, put my head on her shoulder, held me, and said, “Good night, Will Krudski. Sleep well.”

SCOUT: I’m sure you did.

WILL: Like a baby. Next thing I knew, it was, like, eleven in the morning, the lady who cleans the room was knocking on the door, and Lydia and her things were gone.

SCOUT: She just split? Without a word?

WILL: Not quite. My clothes were on a hanger in the closet. In the pocket of the tux jacket, where your handkerchief had been, was an envelope from the writing desk. The note inside said: “I’ll be back. Promise. Until then, think about your girl, not me, and keep this.”

SCOUT: Keep what?

WILL: Her ruby pendant. It was inside the envelope.

MARK (after exchanging a glance with SCOUT): Will, that sounds just a tad too melodramatic to be true. Are you pulling our leg with this story?

WILL: No. The stone’s in the Dean’s safe, ‘cause the guy who runs the little jewelry shop on Main Street says it’s probably worth about a term’s tuition at this school. But I can show you Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s receipt for it. (He starts to get up.)

MARK (holding WILL down): Not necessary. I believe you.

SCOUT: So do I. You did apologize the next day for having lost my handkerchief.

HAMILTON: Why didn’t you mail the ruby back to her? The post office offers insurance, pretty cheap.

WILL: I thought about it. I checked to make sure there really is a Lydia Bancroft at St. Paul’s, got her mailing address, and started to write a note … which started to turn into a poem … and I realized I was doing exactly what she’d told me not to do.

MARK: Thinking about her instead of Bella.

WILL: Yeh. … So I gave the stone to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and tried to put Lydia out of my mind. And most of the time, I’ve succeeded. But not all the time.

SCOUT: Will, nobody could completely forget that.

WILL: That’s what Bella says. And that she wouldn’t want me to. But …

HAMILTON: Will, it’s part of what we were saying earlier. You’re not supposed to be able to disentangle it. It happens to me sometimes, too.

MARK: And to me.

WILL: Really?

MARK: Yes. And to our girls.

HAMILTON: Jacqueline sometimes thinks about you and Scout. And I like to help her – hence her Christmas present. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you like this.

MARK: And none of us feels unfaithful. Get over it.

WILL (after a pause): Thanks.

MARK: So assuming Lydia comes back … how will you reciprocate?

WILL: Introduce her to Bella, for starters. And if she’s single, I’ll try to set her up with the best single guy I can find. And I may want help … like from the guy who knocked Sean out of the running today.

HAMILTON (exchanging a grin with MARK): Will, it’ll be my pleasure. I’ll help you make sure she’s got a great guy. Promise.

WILL (ruffling HAMILTON’s hair): Thanks, Ham. Lydia’s someone I’d like to be close to, with Bella. Someone I think you and Jake would really, really like.

SCOUT: You would, Ham. That girl’s a keeper.

HAMILTON: Got it. I already have a guy in mind.

WILL: Tell me.

HAMILTON: Someone Jake and I have spent some time with at Grottlesex. Trust me.

WILL: I do.

HAMILTON: Good. … Now, before you went off on your guilt trip about Lydia, you said you wanted to talk about the long run.

WILL: Sorry, yeh.

HAMILTON: What about it?

WILL (after a pause): I think we should try to think it through, looking at the best evidence we have.

SCOUT: Will, the best evidence we have are my parents and Ham’s. They’re the only older couples we know who’ve done something like what we’re trying to do.

WILL: Yeh, I picked up on that yesterday. I kinda picked up on it from the Dean in September.

SCOUT: It’s no secret that they were two very close couples before they were married. Ham and I aren’t sure how close they still are, physically. They’re discreet. But the affection’s still there. And they’re pretty good evidence that it doesn’t turn you weird, don’t you think?

WILL: Of course. But I’m not talking about us. I’m talking about our kids.

SCOUT: Haven’t Ham and I have turned out alright?

WILL: You’re the two guys I admire most. But … what you have is so deep. I had no idea … until I felt it tonight.

MARK: No kidding.

HAMILTON: Come on, Scout and I haven’t done anything.

MARK: Except take intense pleasure in each other’s lovemaking, and in helping each other, and doing that unbelievably well. The coordination, the empathy …

SCOUT: Oh crap. Will …

WILL: Shhh … It’s beautiful. And neither Mark nor I is jealous. It’s part of what made tonight so great, for all of us. Jacqueline and whatever girl you end up with will love it.

MARK: For sure. And so will Anne and I, and Bella and Will, when we’re all together. Will and I just weren’t expecting it. … It’s so … different … almost like what Liz and I might have, if she were a guy.

WILL: Yeh. … And that’s kinda my point. Ham, Scout – what if one of you had been a girl?

HAMILTON (cracking up): I can’t even imagine Calhoun as a girl.

MARK: Alright, what if you’d been a girl?

HAMILTON (looking at SCOUT): I’d never thought of that.

SCOUT: I have. And Will’s right. I’d have wanted to marry you. There’d never have been any doubt.

MARK (to HAMILTON): Mutual?

HAMILTON (slightly shaken): No question. I’d have committed years ago and never looked back.

WILL: And Scout's sisters really, really like you.

HAMILTON: You've talked with Sarah and Francine … about me?

WILL: No. I tried to get Sarah to, but she wouldn't. Like you were something too good, and way too private, to talk about.

HAMILTON (puzzled): But you haven't seen her since September … when you stayed with Scout's family on your way back from St. Martin … before you got back here and learned from my dad that I know the Calhouns.

WILL: Yes, but Scout told me in Greenwich that a friend of his that his sisters had a huge crush on, like, forever, had recently been taken, and that Sarah and Francine didn't know yet. So on my last day in Greenwich, I asked Sarah out.

HAMILTON: Krudski, she's thirteen.

WILL: Too young to be kissed, Romeo?

HAMILTON (sputtering): No, but … that was New Year's Eve, midnight - the done thing. Our parents were there. And I kissed Francine, too - just … not quite the same way.

WILL: A ten-year old? Let's hope so. … Scout told me that the only real kiss Sarah had had was from the guy she'd always had a crush on, and that it might be nice if she had another one from someone else before she learned he was taken.

HAMILTON (to SCOUT): Thank you.

SCOUT: It was a no-brainer. Sarah'd been badgering me to get Will to ask her out almost since he arrived. And Francine was nearly as bad. It was only my sisters' first week of school. But somehow they both needed homework help every afternoon. Preferably at the beach, or by the pool. With lots of sunscreen - they were terribly concerned Will might burn.

MARK (to WILL): So what did you do on your date?

WILL: What Scout suggested I do. And pretty much the only thing in Greenwich I could afford to do. Packed a picnic lunch and took Sarah on the ferry out to Great Captain Island.

SCOUT: Which, except for an old lighthouse, is totally deserted. … I told Sarah she could totally trust Will, and that she couldn't ask for a better teacher.

MARK: High praise.

SCOUT: It is. And that afternoon, when Francine and I sailed out to the island to pick them up, Sarah told me it was merited.

HAMILTON: Will, well done.

WILL: My pleasure, obviously. But I was a target of opportunity. … You Sarah and Francine adore. Ever wish that one of them was your age?

HAMILTON: Often. And even though they're not, until last summer … I'd always thought I might end up with one of them someday. 

WILL: So it's not just you and Scout. The affection, and hence the attraction, tend to rub off on the kids - strongly.

HAMILTON: Yes, but Jake and I will not hurt Sarah and Francine. We'll take them under our wing … (To SCOUT:) Starting this New Year's.

WILL: Ham, I never doubted that. I'm not worried about Scout's sisters. I'm worried about our kids.

MARK: Because they may be attracted to one another?

WILL: Yes. Nobody can blame Scout's parents and Ham's for not foreseeing that. But we can foresee it. Is that what we want for our kids?

HAMILTON: It's like family, but it's not family. There’s no biological reason to put up some barrier.

SCOUT: And we’d get no help from anybody in enforcing it.

HAMILTON: And telling our kids to mess around to get experience, when they’re already in love … that’s a sure way to make them hate us.

MARK: Especially when they figure out that we’ve messed around and gotten experience as couples, with the person we love.

WILL: But shouldn't we warn them, young, that they may be strongly attracted? It may not make them less attracted, but couldn't it help them deal with it?

SCOUT: Definitely. It could have helped Ham and me deal with it, if our parents had seen it coming.

WILL: And is that all we should warn them about?

SCOUT: What else?

WILL: Well, for starters, that this is all new - uncharted waters.

SCOUT: Is it? Isn't committing young to someone you've grown up with what people used to do in villages?

MARK: And in caves.

WILL: But back then, teen couples didn't leave their warm, supportive caves or villages to go off to schools full of troubled single kids trying to decide what to do with their lives and to trying to find someone to do it with. And when a guy meets a wounded single girl, her neediness can be so compelling that he can't not respond to it … (To HAMILTON:) Even if he thinks she's a guy. … (To MARK:) Even if it means hurting another girl who's less wounded. … Maybe even if he's already committed to another girl who's not wounded.

HAMILTON: We can respond to need as couples. Pull hurt kids in, help them find partners, help their partners heal them. And help them stay together, help them not hurt each other.

MARK: And what else _could_ we do? Not commit to girls that we fall in love with young, for fear of meeting wounded girls later? That just creates more wounded kids. 

WILL: But we're winging it. What we're trying to do - and expecting our kids to be able to do - is way more than a double bond between two couples, or any number of couples. It's a wildly Utopian experiment in compassion, in responding - as individuals, as couples, as groups of couples - to neediness, specifically the need to be part of a couple that loves each other and others well.

SCOUT: Some Utopian experiments work, Will. New England started out as one.

WILL: And I'm betting this one can, too. It feels totally right, maybe because the goal is totally traditional. But the means are new and bold. We would never have dreamed of trying anything like this if a homophobic dork in a dinner jacket hadn't shown us, last summer, that compassion can rule passion, like, totally.

HAMILTON: I'm in bed with three guys, lover.

MARK: You're atoning nicely. But don't interrupt, Will's philosophizing. … (To WILL:) And you make a good point - whenever anything goes wrong, we can blame Fleming for having seduced us into this.

WILL: Not really funny. A lot could go wrong. We want this to be about couples - helping couples get together, stay together, grow together. 'Cause that's what we all need. But two thousand years of tradition warns us that anything remotely like this will turn into "free love." Ham has shown that this _needn't_ turn into that - that we _can_ exceed traditional expectations. But that's what this all too easily _could_ turn into.

MARK: Ham, is our philosopher trying to tell us he thinks we're hot?

HAMILTON: 'Could be worse - could be his poetry.

WILL: What I'm trying to tell you is that it's not enough to be _inspired_ by what Ham did for Jacqueline. To make this work, we'll have to be _like_  he's had be to in order to do that - not just passionately but calculatingly compassionate. We'll have to think things through. And because what we're doing is new, it'll have consequences that none of us has thought through. Like that our kids may want to marry each other. If we start out sharing beds, we may end up grandparenting together. We're sailin' off the edge of the map, guys. So let's keep our eyes open, and make sure our kids do, too.

HAMILTON: We will. And thank you. Even if it's way too flattering, that's brilliant … and romantic.

WILL: Romantic?

HAMILTON: Very. Mark, on top of Will, please? I’d like to be next to him.

MARK (complying): My pleasure.

WILL (helping HAMILTON pull in next to him): How is my warning about the long run “romantic”?

HAMILTON (playing with WILL’s hair): Guys can’t have kids together. Having grandkids together is as close as we can come. I’m touched that you want to do that with me, Will.

WILL (amused): We’ll have to have some kids first, guy. And we’ll need some help for that.

HAMILTON: I know. So maybe this is something we should wait to discuss with our girls. With all our girls, when we all have girls.

WILL (caressing HAMILTON’s head): Agreed.

HAMILTON: And then it’ll be even more romantic.

WILL (smiling): A lot more.

SCOUT: Although our girls will tell us there’s nothing to discuss.

WILL: They will?

MARK: They will, prospective grandfather of my grandchildren. I’d love to be looking into Bella’s or Lena’s or Jackie’s eyes when we lay on them the thought that our kids may fall in love with each other. But what they'll tell us, if we start worrying about the consequences, is that when our kids fall in love, no matter when or with whom … (He eye-cues SCOUT.)

SCOUT: We'll support them. Period.

HAMILTON: And they'll be right.

WILL: Even if our kids fall for jerks?

SCOUT: Especially if they fall for jerks.

MARK: 'Cause they'll need help turning their jerks into ex-jerks.

HAMILTON: So maybe we should stop thinking about the long run, and starting thinking about the short run.

WILL: Like what?

HAMILTON (nuzzling): Our second round - unless you could sleep.

WILL: You know I couldn’t. None of us could.

HAMILTON: Mmmm … you’re so perceptive.

WILL: And you’re so hopeless. Could you and Mark really do it again, in anything like the way you like to?

HAMILTON: Not usually. But we’re not usually with you and Scout.

WILL: Then why don’t you take your guy and get started? Scout and I will keep up.

HAMILTON: Because I’d like to start with you this time.

WILL: Ham …

MARK: Ham and I got phone-teased about not doing more with you and Scout. We have our girls’ consent, and more, unasked.

WILL: Having it doesn’t mean we should use it. … (To HAMILTON:) You and I will wait for Jacqueline and Bella.

HAMILTON: Mmmm. … But we could do some now, and still save the best for when we’re with them. Go to the edge and stay there with me for a while? Then we’ll switch partners to go over.

WILL: While Scout and Mark do what?

HAMILTON: The same.

WILL: Uh –huh. And Mark and I?

HAMILTON: The night is young.

WILL: No! At least Jacqueline knows Scout and me. Her consent means something. But Anne’s never met us. What about that do you not understand?

MARK: Actually, Will, that’s not entirely true. And I’m kind of under orders to tell you and Scout that.

SCOUT: Mark, seeing us from across a street or a dining room doesn’t count.

WILL: Neither do the photos of us from last summer in Jacqueline’s room. And don’t feed us garbage about how Anne feels she already knows us. She may, but it’s not enough.

MARK (sighing): I should have told you when you guys first stepped out of the walk-in. But I’ve really enjoyed our conversation since then.

SCOUT: Told us what?

MARK: Scout, your monogrammed handkerchief that you lent Will to wear in his tux at the Homecoming dance … Anne will give it back to you this weekend.

WILL (after a pause): Lydia’s … Anne?

MARK (nodding): She was going to tell you herself when she gets here, but when she heard that you and Scout hadn't done much with Ham and me, and were hiding in the closet, because you thought you hadn’t met her …

SCOUT: That’s impossible. Anne has light auburn hair. Lydia’s was dark brown, almost black.

MARK: Like Jackie’s? Yes. And Will’s mom rents some very nice wigs.

WILL: She doesn’t rent them, she sells them.

MARK: She’ll agree to buy one back for most of its original price the next day, if it’s still in good condition. I suspect that’s part of why Anne turned off the lights, Will. Wigs don’t stay on long in bed. I’m sure she took hers off.

WILL (covering his face with a pillow): Oh god …

SCOUT: No way. I saw Anne at lunch the next day at the Inn. It was not the same girl. The facial structure was different. Anne has prominent high cheekbones. Lydia didn’t.

MARK: She stuffed her cheeks with rolled-up pieces of rag – old theater trick. Also removed when the lights went out, no doubt.

SCOUT (angrily): You put your girl up to that? And you got Will to tell you about it – knowing he’d be embarrassed as hell?

MARK: To enjoying Will’s story, I plead guilty. Partly because I hadn’t heard much of it before. But what I said then still stands – Will has absolutely no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed. Unless you think Jackie has reason to be embarrassed or ashamed of letting me do the same for her last summer.

HAMILTON: And in that case, you have a problem with me. A serious problem, Scout.

SCOUT: No, I don’t. I just …

MARK: Good. And I did not put Anne up to it. It was all Anne’s idea.

SCOUT (to HAMILTON): Were you in on this?

MARK: No. Ham wasn’t told until the next time he, Jackie, Anne and I were together.

SCOUT: I can imagine. … But you and Bella were in on it.

MARK: Anne told us she was going to the dance. Partly 'cause it was her best chance to meet kids at the school that Jackie, Ham and I were already suggesting she consider transferring to. But mostly to try to get to know you and Will and Liz. And she told Bella and me that if she liked Will, she might offer him what I’d given Jackie last summer.

SCOUT: And Bella was OK with that?

MARK: More than OK. So OK that I could … exact a price.

WILL (from under the pillow): You did the same thing for Bella, the same night?

MARK: Ask Bella.

WILL (removing the pillow): Thank you.

MARK (sighing): Not that night. The next night, with Anne. Never without Anne. … Behind Anne’s boldness was caution, Will. She and I wanted to try to be there for Bella. Jackie and Ham couldn’t. But Anne wanted to make sure she likes you and Scout, and that you like her, before she and I got involved with Bella. You three kinda come as a package, and she didn’t want any of us to get hurt.

SCOUT: How can I know whether I like her, Mark? It was all a lie. The empathy was bogus. She already knew everything she asked me, didn’t she?

HAMILTON: The empathy had help, Scout. But the supportiveness was all real. It’s what’s kept Jake afloat this term. Anne lied to you so that she could give some of it to Bella without making you and Will try to keep more secrets – secrets she and Mark have been keeping for Jake, at my request.

MARK: And Will … Anne felt so good about it, about herself, afterwards. She came back to the Inn wanting some attention, of course. And her lovemaking was just … triumphant.

WILL (to MARK, softly, caressing his head): I’m so glad she has you. … (To HAMILTON:) And that Jake has her. … And Scout, no one here has hurt me, or ever will – unless they need to, to help me or someone else more. Jacqueline, Ham, Anne and Mark are trying to be our lovers, and we couldn’t ask for better.

SCOUT: Alright. … Mark, your girl’s great. And it was well done. … But who’s Lydia Bancroft?

MARK: A friend of Anne’s from middle school who, like Anne, wanted to come East for prep school. I had no clue that Anne used her as a cover.

SCOUT: So what did Anne tell you, afterwards?

MARK: Just that she liked you, Liz, and Will, more than enough to get involved with you. That she’d left her pendant with Will as a promise to come back. And - tossing me your handkerchief - that she’d stolen a small trophy from his tux. Nothing but that.

SCOUT: Only what you really needed to know … until Will was there for it. … Classy.

MARK: I thought so too. … But Will, except for that first time, to let Bella know she’s welcome with us, Anne and I haven’t pushed ourselves on her. Bella’s not going for you is her choice. She should feel a little lonely. She has to ask, not necessarily with words. And she hasn’t asked often.

WILL: But you’ve been here for her when she needs you, and you could do that better than anybody else. There aren’t many people who know all her problems – including that Scout’s dad might be hers. Just Sean, Scout and me – guys she can’t or won’t touch – and Jacqueline and Ham, who are never here together – and you and Liz, ‘cause Scout told you when he started dating Liz.

HAMILTON (to SCOUT): And Anne, obviously. I told her, so that she and Mark could try to help Bella.

SCOUT (nodding): I trust you. So does my dad.

HAMILTON (to WILL): Feel better about our kids' prospects for responding to need as couples now?

WILL (smiling at MARK): Way better. … (He puts the pillow back under his head. To HAMILTON:): And your horsecrap about going to the edge with me … and Scout with Mark?

HAMILTON: Just giving Mark an opening for his confession. We’ll wait for our girls.

WILL: You’re so puckish. … (To MARK): But your girl and I … my girl and you … our girls …

MARK: And our guys.

WILL: Yeh. … You and I?

MARK: In Bella’s and Anne’s arms, after we’ve given them our best.

WILL: Could be a while.

MARK: Worth waiting for.

WILL (pulling MARK’s head down to his): Definitely. (He kisses MARK affectionately.)

MARK (breaking off): Think you could sleep now?

WILL (nodding, turning to SCOUT): That OK?

SCOUT: Sure. Ham?

MARK (rolling half-off WILL, backing erotically into HAMILTON): Ignore Fleming. He’s insatiable.

HAMILTON (biting MARK’s neck): I’m constantly teased. … (To SCOUT:) Kill the lamp.

(SCOUT grins, stands, walks to the lava lamp.)

WILL: It’s weird, isn’t it?

SCOUT (turning off the lamp): What?

WILL: Kindness. Sometimes it’s so hot that it can substitute for sex, all by itself. … (To MARK:) And you, lover, were very good tonight.

SCOUT (settling back in beside WILL): Maybe because he had a little help from his better half – even if she’s not here. (He starts to pull up the sleeping bags to cover them to their waists.)

MARK (helping SCOUT pull up the covers): It can substitute – but not for long. Ham, set your cell alarm for six, please?

HAMILTON (nipping MARK’s shoulder): Shouldn’t we ask our hosts?

MARK (rolling onto his back): No, it’s not for us, it’s for them. I want you primed for tomorrow night.

HAMILTON (grinning): You’re strange, but you have some good ideas. (He reaches for his phone, starts to fiddle with it.)

SCOUT: Guys …

MARK: Scout, you and Will do this so seldom … when you do, you should do it right once – looking into each other’s eyes. You’re not going to fall totally in love with each other.

WILL: How can you be so sure?

MARK (grazing WILL’s chest): Jackie and Ham and Anne and I’ll keep you both way too busy falling in love with us – and Bella and Lena.

HAMILTON: We’ll all do whatever it takes to make this work. … (Setting his phone back down:) Just don’t do this alone, without Mark and me or girls, OK?

SCOUT (after exchanging smiles with WILL): OK. (He rests his head on WILL’s shoulder.)

MARK: And tomorrow morning … now that you know you _have_ met Anne … Ham and I will help you and Will a bit more actively than we did tonight.

HAMILTON: For Anne and Jacqueline.

WILL: Oh god …

MARK: And for Bella and Lena, who are both worth waiting for. And Will, it’ll happen, trust me.

WILL: Thanks.

MARK: Good night, Will Krudski. Sleep well.

 

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	26. Scene 23 - Clouds unfold

INT - GROUNDKEEPER’S STOREROOM, RAWLEY BOYS’, DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY (NIGHT)

 

A large, cluttered basement storeroom, dark save for outdoor lamplight filtering in through ceiling windows along one wall. A long rack full of shovels lines the wall under the windows. Near the center of the room is a staircase leading upward. At the one end of the room is a freight elevator door. At the opposite end is the GROUNDSKEEPER’s office, separated by a partition that is glass from waist-height up. A closed half-glass door connects the office to the storeroom; another closed solid-wood door is at the rear of the office. The office is furnished with a file cabinet, a few old metal-frame chairs, and an old grey metal desk, atop which is a television set.

RYDER, in blue jeans and burgundy pullover, barefoot and carrying a backpack and pocket knife, quietly enters through the door at the top of the stairs. He folds and pockets the knife, takes a small flashlight out of his other pocket, turns it on. Quietly but quickly, he descends the stairs, goes to three boxes resting atop several rows of large crates under the stairs. He takes four envelopes out of each of the boxes, removes a dozen similar envelopes from his backpack, puts four into each of the boxes, puts the envelopes from the boxes into his backpack, climbs back up the stairs, leaves.

As the door closes behind RYDER, a light goes on in the GROUNDSKEEPER’s office. A groggy GROUNDSKEEPER enters the office from its rear door, wearing plaid pyjamas and bathrobe.

 

END OF ACT II.

[For ACT III, click here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1438309/chapters/3025174).

 

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